  The decay of photoexcited quantum systems (examples are photodissociation of
molecules and autoionization of atoms) can be viewed as a half-collision
process (an incoming photon excites the system which subsequently decays by
dissociation or autoionization). For this reason, the standard statistical
approach to quantum scattering, originally developed to describe nuclear
compound reactions, is not directly applicable. Using an alternative approach,
correlations and fluctuations of observables characterizing this process were
first derived in [Fyodorov YV and Alhassid Y 1998 Phys. Rev. A 58, R3375]. Here
we show how the results cited above, and more recent results incorporating
direct decay processes, can be obtained from the standard statistical
scattering approach by introducing one additional channel.
