A toolkit for semiclassical computations for strongly-driven molecules: "frustrated" ionization of H${}_2$ driven by elliptical laser fields

Abstract

We study the formation of highly excited neutral atoms during the break-up of strongly-driven molecules. Past work on this significant phenomenon has shown that during the formation of highly excited neutral atoms (${\mathrm{H}}^{\ast }$) during the break-up of H${}_2$ in a linear laser field the electron that escapes does so either very quickly or after remaining bound for a few periods of the laser field. Here, we address the electron-nuclear dynamics in ${\mathrm{H}}^{\ast }$ formation in elliptical laser fields, through Coulomb explosion. We show that with increasing ellipticity two-electron effects are effectively "switched-off". We perform these studies using a toolkit we have developed for semiclassical computations for strongly-driven multi-center molecules. This toolkit includes the formulation of the probabilities of strong-field phenomena in a transparent way. This allows us to identify the shortcomings of currently used initial phase space distributions for the electronic degrees of freedom. In addition, it includes a 3-dimensional method for time-propagation that fully accounts for the Coulomb singularity. This technique has been previously developed in the context of celestial mechanics and we currently adopt it to strongly-driven systems. Moreover, we allow for tunneling during the time-propagation. We find that this is necessary in order to accurately describe the fragmentation of strongly-driven molecules.

12 pages, 9 figures

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Frustrated double ionization in two-electron triatomic molecules
• Controlling electron-electron correlation in frustrated double ionization of molecules with orthogonally polarized two-color laser fields
• Enhancing frustrated double ionisation with no electronic correlation in triatomic molecules using counter-rotating two-color circular laser fields
• Semiclassical two-step model for ionization by a strong laser pulse: Further developments and applications
• Electron double-emission spectra for Helium atoms in intense 400 nm laser pulses
• A general model and toolkit for the ionization of three or more electrons in strongly driven atoms using an effective Coulomb potential for the interaction between bound electrons
• Triple ionization and "frustrated" triple ionization in triatomic molecules driven by intense laser fields
• Frustrated double ionization of atoms in circularly polarized laser fields
• Frustrated double and single ionization in a two-electron triatomic molecule H${}_3^{+}$
• Intensity dependence of Rydberg states
• Intertwined electron-nuclear motion in frustrated double ionization in driven heteronuclear molecules
• Signatures of magnetic field effects in non-sequential double ionization manifesting as back-scattering for molecules versus forward-scattering for atoms