M2‐E1 mixing in ion induced L x‐ray transitions

The effect of magnetic quadrupole (M2) admixture in electric dipole (E1) transitions appears very significantly in the angular distribution of x‐ray lines arising from the decay of strongly aligned L₃ vacancies. From the measured anisotropy parameters of the different L₃ x‐ray lines of Au and U ionized by 0.5 and 1.5 MeV porton impact the M2‐E1 mixing ratios were deduced for the L_α1 and L₁ transitions. For U the M2‐E1 mixing ratios for the L_β6 and L_β2,15 lines were also determined. The experimental results show that the M2 admixture in these transitions is significantly larger than previously predicted by theoretical calculations.