# Light-pulse pairs reveal the femtosecond decay of an inner-shell hole in xenon atoms

Source: [Physics News - Physics News, Material Sciences, Science News, Physics](https://phys.org/news/2026-11-pulse-pairs-reveal-femtosecond-decay.html) · 2026-11-10 · Physics
Page: https://themorning.science/story/light-pulse-pairs-reveal-the-femtosecond-decay-of-an-inner-shell-hole-in-xenon-a-78dc8e35bd1f8b0f
Kind: research · Impact: low

## In brief

- Researchers at the UVSOR Synchrotron Facility (Institute for Molecular Science, Japan) and partner institutions observed the decay of a xenon 4d core hole directly in the time domain.
- The study used pairs of phase-coherent extreme ultraviolet pulses to track the inner-shell vacancy as it decays on a femtosecond timescale.

## Why it matters

Direct time-domain measurements of core-hole decay in a simple atom provide experimental benchmarks for ultrafast atomic physics and for interpreting time-resolved X-ray and EUV spectroscopy.

## Coverage

- [Light-pulse pairs reveal the femtosecond decay of an inner-shell hole in xenon atoms](https://phys.org/news/2026-11-pulse-pairs-reveal-femtosecond-decay.html) — Physics News - Physics News, Material Sciences, Science News, Physics, 2026-11-10

Tags: xenon, core-hole, ultrafast-physics, extreme-ultraviolet, femtosecond-spectroscopy

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Brief generated by AI (claude-haiku-5-5) from the reporting listed under Coverage. Headlines belong to their publishers. The Morning Science – https://themorning.science