Quantum state holography to reconstruct the molecular wave packet using an attosecond XUV-XUV pump-probe technique

Sci Rep. 2020 Jul 31;10(1):12981. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-69733-1.

Abstract

An attosecond molecular interferometer is proposed by using a XUV-XUV pump-probe scheme. The interferograms resulting in the photoelectron distributions enable the full reconstruction of the molecular wave packet associated to excited states using a quantum state holographic approach that, to our knowledge, has only been proposed for simple atomic targets combining attosecond XUV pulses with IR light. In contrast with existing works, we investigate schemes where one- and two-photon absorption paths contribute to ionize the hydrogen molecule and show that it is possible to retrieve the excitation dynamics even when imprinted in a minority channel. Furthermore, we provide a systematic analysis of the time-frequency maps that reveal the distinct, but tightly coupled, motion of electrons and nuclei.