Striking Generic Impact of Light-Induced Non-Adiabaticity in Polyatomic Molecules

Non-adiabaticity, i.e., the effect of mixing electronic states by nuclear motion, is a central phenomenon in molecular science. The strongest nonadiabatic effects arise due to the presence of conical intersections of electronic energy surfaces. These intersections are abundant in polyatomic molecules. Laser light can induce in a controlled manner new conical intersections, called light-induced conical intersections, which lead to strong nonadiabatic effects similar to those of the natural conical intersections. These effects are, however, controllable and may even compete with those of the natural intersections. In this work we show that the standard low-energy vibrational spectrum of the electronic ground state can change dramatically by inducing non-adiabaticity via a light-induced conical intersection. This generic effect is demonstrated for an explicit example by full-dimensional high-level quantum calculations using a pump-probe scheme with a moderate-intensity pump laser and a weak probe laser.