title: Single photon-induced symmetry breaking of H2 dissociation.
abstract: H2, the smallest and most abundant molecule in the universe, has a perfectly symmetric ground state. What does it take to break this symmetry? We found that the inversion symmetry can be broken by absorption of a linearly polarized photon, which itself has inversion symmetry. In particular, the emission of a photoelectron with subsequent dissociation of the remaining H+2 fragment shows no symmetry with respect to the ionic H+ and neutral H atomic fragments. This lack of symmetry results from the entanglement between symmetric and antisymmetric H+2 states that is caused by autoionization. The mechanisms behind this symmetry breaking are general for all molecules.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Química, C-9, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Martín
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fernández
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Havermeier
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Foucar
authors.forename: Th
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Weber
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kreidi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schöffler
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jahnke
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Jagutzki
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Czasch
authors.forename: E P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Benis
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Osipov
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Landers
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Belkacem
authors.forename: M H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Prior
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schmidt-Böcking
authors.forename: C L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Cocke
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Dörner