Alignment dependence of photoelectron momentum distributions of atomic and molecular targets probed by few-cycle circularly polarized laser pulses

Abstract

We present theoretical photoelectron momentum distributions (PMDs) for ionization from Ar($3p$) and ${\mathrm{H}}_{2}{}^{+}$(${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{g}$) orbitals by few-cycle, high-intensity, near-infrared laser fields circularly polarized in the $xy$ plane. The three-dimensional time-dependent Schr\odinger equation is solved numerically within the single-active-electron approximation for Ar and within the fixed nuclei approximation for ${\mathrm{H}}_{2}{}^{+}$. The PMDs are investigated for alignment of the probed target orbitals relative to the polarization plane of the laser field. In the atomic case, the PMDs in the polarization plane for aligned $3p$ Ar orbitals are, up to an overall scaling factor, insensitive to alignment of the probed orbital, while the lateral PMDs show a signature of the orbital node when that node is sufficiently close to the polarization plane. For the molecular case of ${\mathrm{H}}_{2}{}^{+}$(${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{g}$), our results show a significant impact of alignment on the PMDs due to the anisotropic molecular potential and the alignment-dependent coupling between the ground state and excited states.