Approximate calculation of femtosecond pump–probe spectra monitoring nonadiabatic excited-state dynamics

Abstract

An approximate theory of femtosecond spectroscopy of nonadiabatically coupled electronic states is developed. Neglecting the commutators of vibrational Hamiltonians pertaining to different diabatic electronic states, the formulation represents a generalization of the semiclassical Franck–Condon approximation to the case of nonadiabatic dynamics. Explicit expressions for various time- and frequency-resolved spectra are derived which allow for a simple interpretation of femtosecond spectroscopy of vibronically coupled molecular systems. Employing multidimensional model problems describing (i) the nonadiabatic cis–trans isomerization of an electronic two-state system, and (ii) the S2→S1 internal conversion of pyrazine, exact reference data are compared to approximate calculations of transient absorbance and emission as well as time-resolved photoelectron spectra. In all cases considered, the approximation is shown to be appropriate for probe–pulse durations that are shorter than the period of the fastest relevant vibrational mode of the molecular system. Reducing the numerical costs of pump–probe simulations to the costs of a standard time-dependent wave-packet propagation, the approximate theory leads to substantial computational savings.