Sulfur Kβ x-ray emission from carbonyl sulfide: variations with polarization and excitation energy at the S K threshold

Sulfur Kβ x-ray-emission spectra from carbonyl sulfide have been measured with resonant excitation at the sulfur K absorption threshold and compared with results of self-consistent field and singles-doubles configuration-interaction calculations. For excitation to the strong 4π absorption resonance, a splitting of the main emission peak is interpreted in terms of influence of the 4π electron on the final valence-hole states. The polarization selectivity of the emission spectrometer was used to distinguish emission polarized parallel versus perpendicular with respect to the polarization of the excitation radiation. The observed polarization dependence is consistent with the molecular symmetries of the calculated intermediate and final states.