Dynamic Exchange in the Strong Field Ionization of Molecules

Phys Rev Lett. 2015 Sep 4;115(10):103002. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.103002. Epub 2015 Sep 1.

Abstract

We show that dynamic exchange is a dominant effect in strong field ionization of molecules. In CO(2) it fixes the peak ionization yield at the experimentally observed angle of 45° between polarization direction and the molecular axis. For O(2) it changes the angle of peak emission and for N(2) the alignment dependence of yields is modified by up to a factor of 2. The effect appears on the Hartree-Fock level as well as in full ab initio solutions of the Schrödinger equation.