COINCIDENT EMISSION OF A CHARACTERISTIC AND A CONTINUUM X-RAY IN ELECTRON-ATOM COLLISIONS

An observation of the simultaneous emission of a characteristic K x ray and a continuum photon has been made for 70-keV electrons bombarding target atoms of Fe, Cu, Y, and Ag. The absolute cross section for Y and Ag agree well with a model that considers a contribution from both double-bremsstrahlung and electron-electron bremsstrahlung processes. The data for Fe and Cu, on the other hand, are about an order of magnitude higher than the model, suggesting the possibility of a resonant polarization bremsstrahlung contribution to the double-bremsstrahlung process.