Heteronuclear Limit of Strong-Field Ionization: Fragmentation of HeH${}^{+}$ by Intense Ultrashort Laser Pulses

Abstract

The laser-induced fragmentation dynamics of this most fundamental polar molecule HeH${}^{+}$ are measured using an ion beam of helium hydride and an isotopologue at various wavelengths and intensities. In contrast to the prevailing interpretation of strong-field fragmentation, in which stretching of the molecule results primarily from laser-induced electronic excitation, experiment and theory for nonionizing dissociation, single ionization and double ionization both show that the direct vibrational excitation plays the decisive role here. We are able to reconstruct fragmentation pathways and determine the times at which each ionization step occurs as well as the bond length evolution before the electron removal. The dynamics of this extremely asymmetric molecule contrast the well-known symmetric systems leading to a more general picture of strong-field molecular dynamics and facilitating interpolation to systems between the two extreme cases.

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References in corpus (5)

• Coherent control at its most fundamental: CEP-dependent electron localization in photodissoziation of a H2+ molecular ion beam target
• Ro-vibrational analysis of the XUV photodissociation of HeH${}^{+}$ ions
• Multiphoton Dissociation of HeH+ below the He+(1s) + H(1s) Threshold
• Momentum-resolved study of the saturation intensity in multiple ionization
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Cited by in corpus (9)

• KATRIN: Status and Prospects for the Neutrino Mass and Beyond
• Tracing origins of asymmetric momentum distribution for polar molecules in strong linearly-polarized laser fields
• Strong-Field Polarizability-Enhanced Dissociative Ionization
• Characterizing Sub-Cycle Electron Dynamics of Polar Molecules by Asymmetry in Photoelectron Momentum Distributions
• Strong-field double ionization dynamics of vibrating HeH${}^{+}$ versus HeT${}^{+}$
• The impact of electron-electron correlation in ultrafast attosecond single ionization dynamics
• Local most-probable routes and classic-quantum correspondence in strong-field two-dimensional tunneling ionization
• Measuring Coulomb-Induced Ionization Time Lag with a Calibrated Attoclock
• Mass-ratio dependent strong-field dissociation of artificial helium hydride isotopologues