DESIREE&Friends 4 Capturing the motion of electrons and atoms using high-energy photons

by Mathieu Gisselbrecht (Lund University)

Tuesday 23 Sept 2025, 13:00 → 13:45 Europe/Stockholm

FB42 (AlbaNova Main Building)

Abstract:

The interaction of high-energy photons with matter lies at the heart of many fundamental processes in physics and chemistry. Understanding these processes has driven countless research efforts with the goal to steer electronic and nuclear dynamics and, ultimately, to control chemical reactions. To achieve this, experimental techniques capable of capturing the ultra-fast motion of electrons are needed.

Over the past two decades, multi-dimensional momentum spectrometry has transformed our ability to study small quantum systems such as atoms, molecules, and clusters, providing unprecedented access to the correlated motion of charged particles. Combined with advanced light sources, from synchrotrons and free-electron lasers to state-of-the-art attosecond light sources, these methods can allow us to disentangled the interplay between electronic and nuclear motion.

In this seminar, I will present several examples from our research group where we employ this spectrometry to reveal the dynamics triggered by high-energy photons. These studies shed light on how fundamental processes unfold on timescales ranging from picoseconds to femtoseconds to attoseconds.