  Electron emission spectra of a thin gold foil after photon interaction were
measured over the energy range between 50 eV and 9500 eV to provide reference
data for Monte Carlo radiation-transport simulations. Experiments were
performed with the HAXPES spectrometer at the PETRA III high-brilliance
beamline P22 at DESY (Hamburg, Germany) for photon energies just below and
above each of the gold L-edges, i.e., at 11.9 keV, 12.0 keV, 13.7 keV, 13.8
keV, 14.3 keV, and 14.4 keV. The data were analyzed to obtain the absolute
values of the particle radiance of the emitted electrons per incident photon
flux. Simulations of the experiment were performed using the Monte Carlo
radiation-transport codes Penelope and Geant4. Comparison of the measured and
simulated results shows good qualitative agreement. When simulation results are
convolved with curves that take into account the effect of lifetime broadening,
line shapes of photoelectron and Auger peaks similar to those observed
experimentally are obtained. On an absolute scale, the experiments tend to give
higher electron radiance values at the lower photon energies studied as well as
at the higher photon energies for electron energies below the energy of the Au
L3 photoelectron. This is attributed to the linear polarization of the photon
beam in the experiments which is not considered in the simulation codes.
