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Strong field non-Franck–Condon ionization of H\(_2\): a semi-classical analysis

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Abstract

Single ionization of H\(_2\) molecules exposed to strong and short laser pulses is investigated by a semi-classical method. Three laser characteristics are considered: (i) The carrier-wave frequency corresponds to wavelengths covering and bridging the two ionization regimes: From tunnel ionization (TI) at 800 nm to multiphoton ionization (MPI) at 266 nm. (ii) Values of the peak intensity are chosen within a window to eliminate competing double ionization processes. (iii) Particular attention is paid to the polarization of the laser field, which can be linearly or circularly polarized. The results and their interpretation concern two observables, namely the end-of-pulse total ionization probability and vibrational distribution generated in the cation H\(_2^+\). The most prominent findings are an increased ionization efficiency in linear polarization and a vibrational distribution of the cation that favors lower-lying levels than those that would be populated in a vertical (Franck–Condon) ionization, leading to non-Franck–Condon distributions, both in linear and circular polarizations.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

The Fortran codes developed by us and used in this work are available on request from the authors.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been performed within the French GDR UP number 3754 of CNRS. Jean-Nicolas Vigneau is grateful to the French MESRI (French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation) for funding his PhD grant through a scholarship from EDOM (Ecole Doctorale Ondes et Matière, Université Paris-Saclay, France). JNV also acknowledges partial funding from the Choquette Family Foundation—Mobility Scholarship and the Paul-Antoine-Giguère Scholarship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut des Sciences Moléculaires d’Orsay, Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, 91405, Orsay, France

    Jean-Nicolas Vigneau, Osman Atabek & Eric Charron

  2. Département de chimie, COPL, Université Laval, 1045, av. de la Médecine, Québec, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada

    Jean-Nicolas Vigneau & Thanh-Tung Nguyen-Dang

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  1. Jean-Nicolas Vigneau
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. The numerical simulations were performed by J-NV. The first draft of the manuscript was written by OA and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jean-Nicolas Vigneau, Thanh-Tung Nguyen-Dang or Eric Charron.

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All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

Additional information

The original online version of this article was revised: To be in accordance with shown results, the laser intensity values given in the original article had to be multiplied by 4 for all calculations performed in circular polarization, which affected some of the aforementioned intensity values, but also the abscissa of figures 3, 5, S2 and S3, that now represents I as I/4 for the circular polarization case, as well as a change in the histograms of figure 7 displaying the final population distribution in the H +2 eigenstates from a circular polarization dynamic.

O. Atabek: Deceased June 27th, 2022.

Supplementary Information

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11734_2022_750_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Results of calculations with varying pulse durations, as mentioned and discussed in Section 3.1, are shown in a separate Supplementary Information file (pdf 1220 KB)

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Vigneau, JN., Atabek, O., Nguyen-Dang, TT. et al. Strong field non-Franck–Condon ionization of H\(_2\): a semi-classical analysis. Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 232, 2081–2093 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-022-00750-z

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