  Free electron lasers (FELs) offer the unprecedented capability to study
reaction dynamics and image the structure of complex systems. When multiple
photons are absorbed in complex systems, a plasma-like state is formed where
many atoms are ionized on a femtosecond timescale. If multiphoton absorption is
resonantly-enhanced, the system becomes electronically-excited prior to plasma
formation, with subsequent decay paths which have been scarcely investigated to
date. Here, we show using helium nanodroplets as an example that these systems
can decay by a new type of process, named collective autoionization. In
addition, we show that this process is surprisingly efficient, leading to ion
abundances much greater than that of direct single-photon ionization. This
novel collective ionization process is expected to be important in many other
complex systems, e.g. macromolecules and nanoparticles, exposed to high
intensity radiation fields.
