Subshell-dependent relaxation in the Auger effect

The effect of relaxation on KLL, LMM, and MNN Auger-electron spectra of Ne, Mg, Ar, Ca, Zn, and Kr has been studied by the Dirac-Fock method. The relaxation is shown to depend universally on the Auger-electron energy and on the number of peel electrons (${\mathit{N}}_{\mathit{r}}$) in subshells above the final-state holes. In the sudden-approximation limit (large ${\mathit{N}}_{\mathit{r}}$), the relaxation saturates to 14% reduction of the Auger rates in analogy to the 20% reduction of deep inner-shell Dirac-Fock photoionization cross sections well above threshold. The isotropy of the relaxation is emphasized by its small influence on the angular distribution of Auger electrons.