Photoionization from the excited p states of the rare-gas atoms

A systematic quantitative estimation of the photoionization cross section from the excited p states of the rare-gas atoms is carried out in a single-configuration calculation. Our calculation has shown that the photoionization from these excited states is quasihydrogenic in nature. At a fixed photoelectron energy, the cross section is found to decrease as the effective quantum number n* increases from state to state and to scale approximately as (n*)^-3. As the photon energy ε increases, the cross section decreases approximately as ε^-3. Our result is also found to compare favorably with the available experimental and theoretical data.