Observation of core-hole double excitations in water using fluorescence spectroscopy

The hydrogen Lyman-alpha, Balmer-alpha, and Balmer-beta emission has been measured from the H2O molecule at photon energies exceeding the 1s ionization threshold. Fluorescence emission is shown to be a sensitive probe to neutral core-hole doubly excited states and singly ionized 1s shake-up states that are embedded in the core ionization continuum. In addition, the photoabsorption spectrum of the water molecule in the energy range of the double excitations has been measured with better statistics than previously.