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Updated: Oct 15, 2025

Spatial Separation of Molecular Conformers and Clusters
Published on: January 9, 2014
Magic Numbers in Boson 4He Clusters: The Auger Evaporation Mechanism
Elena Spreafico1, Giorgio Benedek1,2, Oleg Kornilov3
1Department of Materials Science, University of Milano-Bicocca, Via R. Cozzi 53, 20125 Milan, Italy.
Abstract:
The absence of magic numbers in bosonic 4He clusters predicted by all theories since 1984 has been challenged by high-resolution matter-wave diffraction experiments. The observed magic numbers were explained in terms of enhanced growth rates of specific cluster sizes for which an additional excitation level calculated by diffusion Monte Carlo is stabilized. The present theoretical study provides an alternative explanation based on a simple independent particle model of the He clusters. Collisions between cluster atoms in excited states within the cluster lead to selective evaporation via an Auger process. The calculated magic numbers as well as the shape of the number distributions are in quite reasonable agreement with the experiments.
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