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Updated: Aug 21, 2026

Direct Imaging of Laser-driven Ultrafast Molecular Rotation
Published on: February 4, 2017
Controlling HD+ and H+2 dissociation with the carrier-envelope phase difference of an intense ultrashort laser pulse
Vladimir Roudnev1, B D Esry, I Ben-Itzhak
1J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, USA.
Abstract:
Carrier-envelope phase difference effects in the dissociation of the HD+ molecular ion in the field of an intense, linearly polarized, ultrashort laser pulse are studied in the framework of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. We consider a reduced-dimensionality model in which the nuclei are free to vibrate along the field polarization and the electrons move in two dimensions. The laser has a central wavelength of 790 nm and a pulse length of 10 fs with intensities in the range 6x10(14) to 9x10(14) W/cm(2). We find that the angular distribution of dissociation to p+D and H+d can be controlled by varying the phase difference, generating differences between the dissociation channels of more than a factor of 2. Moreover, the asymmetry is nearly as large for H+2 dissociation.

