Photodetachment of H- near an elastic surface in a magnetic field

This paper investigates the photodetachment of the negative hydrogen ion H^- near an elastic wall in a magnetic field. The magnetic field confines the perpendicular motion of the electron, which results in a real three-dimensional well for the detached electron. The analytical formulas for the cross section of the photodetachment in the three-dimensional quantum well are derived based on both the quantum approach and closed-orbit theory. The magnetic field and the elastic surface lead to two completely different modulations to the cross section of the photodetachment. The oscillation amplitude depends on the strength of the magnetic field, the ion-wall distance and the photon polarization as well. Specially, for the circularly polarized photon-induced photodetachment, the cross sections display a suppressed (E-E_th)^-1/2 threshold law with energy E in the vicinity above Landau energy E_th, contrasting with the (E-E_th)^-1/2 threshold law in the presence of only the magnetic field. The semiclassical calculation fits the quantum result quite well, although there are still small deviations. The difference is attributed to the failure of semiclassical mechanics.