Two-center interference effect on molecular ionization and Rydberg-state excitation

Abstract

Abstract We have studied ionization and excitation of model molecules possessing different initial states (1sσ g and 1sσ u ) in 800 nm laser pulses by numerical solution of three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation and quantum models. Calculations of two methods show good agreement. It is found that the locations of the peaks of total Rydberg-state probability vs laser intensity do not coincide for different initial states, which is ascribed to the fact that the relative contributions from Rydberg states change due to the difference of the ionization time distributions for different initial states induced by the two-center interference effect. In addition, it is demonstrated that the suppression of ionization is more obvious than that of excitation compared the results of 1sσ u state with those of 1sσ g state, which is attributed to the distinct interference effects for molecular ionization and excitation in strong laser fields.