Fig. 5

Monte Carlo simulation of the decay processes following the creation of a vacancy in the 1s shell. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to follow the transfer of the created vacancy at the 1s level due to radiative and Auger transitions. The simulation was performed for atomic Fe and reveals the likelihood distribution of the different valence state. The time needed for the decay cascade was also followed and was found to be considerably shorter than the duration of the SASE pulse. The shift in ionization energy for the different valence states of atomic Fe was calculated using XATOM⁴⁶. It follows that for the higher valence states the 1s electrons cannot be directly excited to the continuum and less likely via TPA for the incident photon energies used