Theory of high-order harmonic generation from molecules by intense laser pulses

Abstract

We show that high-order harmonics generated from molecules by intense laser pulses can be expressed as the product of a returning electron wave packet and the photo-recombination cross section (PRCS) where the electron wave packet can be obtained from simple strong-field approximation (SFA) or from a companion atomic target. Using these wave packets but replacing the PRCS obtained from SFA or from the atomic target by the accurate PRCS from molecules, the resulting HHG spectra are shown to agree well with the benchmark results from direct numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, for the case of H${}_2^{+}$ in laser fields. The result illustrates that these powerful theoretical tools can be used for obtaining high-order harmonic spectra from molecules. More importantly, the results imply that the PRCS extracted from laser-induced HHG spectra can be used for time-resolved dynamic chemical imaging of transient molecules with temporal resolutions down to a few femtoseconds.

10 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Accurate retrieval of structural information from laser-induced photoelectron and high-harmonic spectra by few-cycle laser pulses
• Theoretical analysis of dynamic chemical imaging with lasers using high-order harmonic generation
• FERM3D: A finite element R-matrix electron molecule scattering code

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• Theory of Attosecond Transient Absorption Spectroscopy of Krypton for Overlapping Pump and Probe Pulses
• Probing molecular frame photoionization via laser generated high-order harmonics from aligned molecules
• Uncovering multiple orbitals influence in high harmonic generation from aligned N${}_2$
• Polarization and ellipticity of high-order harmonics from aligned molecules generated by linearly polarized intense laser pulses
• Molecular Orbital Tomography using Short Laser Pulses
• Analysis of effects of macroscopic propagation and multiple molecular orbitals on the minimum in high-order harmonic generation of aligned CO${}_2$
• Retrieval of interatomic separations of molecules from laser-induced high-order harmonic spectra
• Theoretical Study of Molecular Electronic and Rotational Coherences by High-Harmonic Generation