title: Intense-laser-field ionization of molecular hydrogen in the tunneling regime and its effect on the vibrational excitation of H2+.
abstract: H2 molecules were ionized by Ti:sapphire (45 fs, 800 nm) and Nd-doped yttrium aluminum garnet lasers (6 ns, 1064 nm). The relative populations of the vibrational levels of the H+2 ions were determined and found to be concentrated in the lowest vibrational levels. Tunneling ionization calculations with exact field-modified potential curves reproduce the experimental results. The reason for the departure from conventional Franck-Condon-like distributions is the rapid variation of the ionization rate with internuclear distance.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physique Atomique et Moléculaire, Université catholique de Louvain, Chemin du Cyclotron 2, B-1348 Louvain-la-neuve, Belgium.
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Urbain
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fabre
authors.forename: E M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Staicu-Casagrande
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: de Ruette
authors.forename: V M
authors.initials: VM
authors.lastname: Andrianarijaona
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jureta
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Posthumus
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saenz
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Baldit
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cornaggia