An
electronic state occuring as the initial or final state of a process involving the absorption or emission
of X-ray radiation. It represents a many-electron state which, in the purely atomic
case, has total
angular momentum
(
) as a well defined quantum number.
Source:
PAC, 1991, 63, 735
(Nomenclature, symbols, units and their usage in spectrochemical analysis - VIII.
Nomenclature system for X-ray spectroscopy (Recommendations 1991))
on page 737