Measurement of coherent vibrational dynamics with X-ray Transient Absorption Spectroscopy simultaneously at the Carbon K- and Chlorine L2,3- edges

X-ray Transient Absorption Spectroscopy (XTAS) is a powerful probe for ultrafast molecular dynamics. The evolution of XTAS signal is controlled by the shapes of potential energy surfaces of the associated core-excited states, which are difficult to directly measure. Here, we study the vibrational dynamics of Raman activated CCl4 with XTAS targeting the C 1s and Cl 2p electrons. The totally symmetric stretching mode leads to concerted elongation or contraction in bond lengths, which in turn induce an experimentally measurable red or blue shift in the X-ray absorption energies associated with inner-shell electron excitations to the valence antibonding levels. The ratios between slopes of different core-excited potential energy surfaces (CEPESs) thereby extracted agree very well with Restricted Open-Shell Kohn-Sham calculations. The other, asymmetric, modes do not measurably contribute to the XTAS signal. The results highlight the ability of XTAS to reveal coherent nuclear dynamics involving  < 0.01 Å atomic displacements and also provide direct measurement of forces on CEPESs. The evolution of X-ray transient absorption signal in studies of ultrafast molecular dynamics is controlled by the shapes of potential energy surfaces of the associated core-excited states. The authors use experiment and theory to measure the slopes of potential energy surfaces for excitations out of the C 1s and Cl 2p shells to valence antibonding orbitals in CCl4