Ultrafast Science, Volume. 2, Issue 1, 9863548(2022)

Low-Energy Protons in Strong-Field Dissociation of H2+ via Dipole-Transitions at Large Bond Lengths

Shengzhe Pan1, Chenxi Hu2, Zhaohan Zhang2, Peifen Lu1, Chenxu Lu1, Lianrong Zhou1, Jiawei Wang1, Fenghao Sun1, Junjie Qiang1, Hui Li1, Hongcheng Ni1, Xiaochun Gong1, Feng He2,3、*, and Jian Wu1,3,4、*
Author Affiliations
  • 1State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China
  • 2Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and School of Physics and Astronomy, Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
  • 3CAS Center for Excellence in Ultra-Intense Laser Science, Shanghai 201800, China
  • 4Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, Shanxi 030006, China
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    More than ten years ago, the observation of the low-energy structure in the photoelectron energy spectrum, regarded as an “ionization surprise,” has overthrown our understanding of strong-field physics. However, the similar low-energy nuclear fragment generation from dissociating molecules upon the photon energy absorption, one of the well-observed phenomena in light-molecule interaction, still lacks an unambiguous mechanism and remains mysterious. Here, we introduce a time-energy-resolved manner using a multicycle near-infrared femtosecond laser pulse to identify the physical origin of the light-induced ultrafast dynamics of molecules. By simultaneously measuring the bond-stretching times and photon numbers involved in the dissociation of H2+ driven by a polarization-skewed laser pulse, we reveal that the low-energy protons (below 0.7 eV) are produced via dipole-transitions at large bond lengths. The observed low-energy protons originate from strong-field dissociation of high vibrational states rather than the low ones of H2+ cation, which is distinct from the well-accepted bond-softening picture. Further numerical simulation of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation unveils that the electronic states are periodically distorted by the strong laser field, and the energy gap between the field-dressed transient electronic states may favor the one- or three-photon transitions at the internuclear distance larger than 5 a.u. The time-dependent scenario and our time-energy-resolved approach presented here can be extended to other molecules to understand the complex ultrafast dynamics.

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    Shengzhe Pan, Chenxi Hu, Zhaohan Zhang, Peifen Lu, Chenxu Lu, Lianrong Zhou, Jiawei Wang, Fenghao Sun, Junjie Qiang, Hui Li, Hongcheng Ni, Xiaochun Gong, Feng He, Jian Wu. Low-Energy Protons in Strong-Field Dissociation of H2+ via Dipole-Transitions at Large Bond Lengths[J]. Ultrafast Science, 2022, 2(1): 9863548

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    Paper Information

    Category: Research Articles

    Received: Dec. 4, 2021

    Accepted: Apr. 1, 2022

    Published Online: Sep. 28, 2023

    The Author Email: He Feng (fhe@sjtu.edu.cn), Wu Jian (jwu@phy.ecnu.edu.cn)

    DOI:10.34133/2022/9863548

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