Correlated electron–nuclear dynamics of molecules in strong laser fields

Abstract

For a molecule irradiated by an intense laser field, the sudden excitation or removal of an electron will trigger ultrafast electronic and nuclear dynamics, of which the timescales are usually several orders different and can be separately treated according to the Born–Oppenheimer approximation. However, the electrons and nuclei are intrinsically coupled in a molecule and should be considered on an equal footing in strong laser fields. In this paper, we review the recent progresses made on the correlated electron–nuclear dynamics of molecules exposed to strong laser fields, in particular, the multiphoton energy absorption and deposition in molecular dissociative ionization. Moreover, the electron–nuclear correlation offers an alternative visual angle to capture the fascinating strong-field molecular dynamics, including the photon-number-resolved asymmetric dissociative single ionization, high-order above-threshold dissociation, and Rydberg states excitation in dissociative frustrated ionization of molecules, which cannot be revealed if only the electrons or nuclear fragments are measured independently.