Laser-driven isomerization of HCN → HNC: the importance of rotational excitation.
We report a time-dependent quantum wave packet theory, which is employed to interpret the isomerization dynamics of HCN molecules induced by an intense picosecond infrared laser field. Considering the molecular rotational degrees of the freedom, the wave functions are expanded in terms of molecular rotational bases. Our full-dimensional quantum model includes the full Coriolis coupling in the molecular kinetic energy Hamiltonian and dipole approximation in interaction terms. The numerical results show that the field-induced molecule rotational excitation plays an important role in the isomerization dynamical process. Some phenomena appear such as two-step two-photon absorption and highly oscillatory structure in rotational state distributions. The centrifugal sudden (CS) approximation calculation is also carried out and compared in this work; it is shown that the Coriolis couplings may lead to a significant decrease in the isomerization rate but highly enhanced molecular rotational excitation.
†School of Physics, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China.
Zhaopeng
Z
Sun
†School of Physics, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China.|‡Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS).
Yujun
Y
Zheng