Photoabsorption in carbon monoxide: Stieltjes–Tchebycheff calculations in the separated-channel static-exchange approximation

Theoretical investigations of total and partial-channel photoabsorption cross sections in carbon monoxide are reported employing the Stieltjes–Tchebycheff (S–T) technique and separated-channel static-exchange calculations. Pseudospectra of discrete transition frequencies and oscillator strengths appropriate for individual excitations of each of the six occupied molecular orbitals are constructed using Hartree–Fock core functions and normalizable Gaussian orbitals to describe the photoexcited and ejected electrons. Use of relatively large basis sets of compact and diffuse functions insures the presence of appropriate discrete Rydberg states in the calculations and provides sufficiently dense pseudospectra for the determination of convergent photoionization cross sections from the S–T technique. The calculated discrete vertical electronic excitation spectra are in very good agreement with measured band positions and intensities, and the partial-channel photoionization cross sections are in correspondingly good accord with recent electron–electron (e,2e) coincidence, synchrotron-radiation, and line-source branching-ratio measurements. Predicted resonance features in the X, B, O2s−1, and carbon K-shell channels are in particularly good agreement with the positions and intensities in the measured cross sections. A modest discrepancy between experiment and theory in the A-channel cross section is tentatively attributed to channel-coupling mechanisms associated with opening of the 1π shell. The total vertical electronic S–T photoionization cross section for parent-ion production is in excellent agreement with recent electron–ion coincidence measurements. Comparisons are made between ionization processes in carbon monoxide and in the previously studied nitrogen molecule, and similarities and differences in the respective cross sections are clarified in terms of conventional molecular-orbital theory.