title: Vibrational excitation of diatomic molecular ions in strong field ionization of diatomic molecules.
abstract: A model based on the strong-field and Born-Oppenheimer approximations qualitatively describes the distribution over vibrational states formed in a diatomic molecular ion following ionization of the neutral molecule by intense laser pulses. Good agreement is found with a recent experiment [X. Urbain et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 163004 (2004)]. In particular, the observed deviation from a Franck-Condon-like distribution is reproduced. Additionally, we demonstrate control of the vibrational distribution by a variation of the peak intensity or a change of frequency of the laser pulse.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Thomas K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Kjeldsen
authors.forename: Lars Bojer
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Madsen