We report measurements of the effective Coulomb interaction of the final-state holes, or Auger parameter, of the L3M4,5M4,5 transition in the 4d metallic series. By applying the excited-atom version of the quasiatomic model of hole screening, we show that it is possible to extract experimentally a purely valence-electron contribution to the Auger parameter. The systematic dependence on atomic number clearly manifests the effect of the type of screening charge. Comparison with 4d M5N4,5N4,5 results indicates independence of the final-state nature within experimental error (0.5 eV), lending support to interpretations of d-band holes as corelike. The similarity with model results for the 5d series is striking and there is general agreement with calculations of metallic renormalization of the Auger parameter in the 4d series. © 1991 The American Physical Society.44733833386