Subfemtosecond Control of Molecular Fragmentation by Hard X-Ray Photons

Tuning hard x-ray excitation energy along Cl 1s→σ^{*} resonance in gaseous HCl allows manipulating molecular fragmentation in the course of the induced multistep ultrafast dissociation. The observations are supported by theoretical modeling, which shows a strong interplay between the topology of the potential energy curves, involved in the Auger cascades, and the so-called core-hole clock, which determines the time spent by the system in the very first step. The asymmetric profile of the fragmentation ratios reflects different dynamics of nuclear wave packets dependent on the photon energy.