Abstract
We study propagation effects due to the finite speed of light in ionization of extended molecular systems. We present a general quantitative theory of these effects and show under which conditions such effects should appear. The finite speed of light propagation effects are encoded in the non-dipole terms of the time-dependent Shrödinger equation and display themselves in the photoelectron momentum distribution projected on the molecular axis. Our numerical modeling for the hbox {H}_{2}^{+} molecular ion and the hbox {Ne}_2 dimer shows that the finite light propagation time from one atomic center to another can be accurately determined in a table top laser experiment which is much more readily accessible than the ground breaking synchrotron measurement by Grundmann et al. (Science 370:339, 2020).
Highlights
We study propagation effects due to the finite speed of light in ionization of extended molecular systems
We aimed to demonstrate that a similar delay, that is caused by the finite speed of light propagation from one constituent atom to another, can be detected in a much more accessible table top laser settings
We developed a general theory of the finite speed of light propagation effects in ionization of extended systems
Summary
We study propagation effects due to the finite speed of light in ionization of extended molecular systems. It was quite unexpected to discover an ionization process in the hydrogen molecule that evolved on a zeptosecond time scale[4] An explanation of this phenomenon appeared to be quite simple. While it takes tens of attoseconds for an electron to trespass the H2 molecule, the incoming light wave sweeps from one molecular end to another orders of magnitude faster This results in one of the constituent hydrogen atoms getting ionized a fraction of the attosecond sooner than its counterpart. The numerical results obtained for H+2 using the TDSE can be interpreted in a transparent qualitative way by considering a very simple heuristic tight-binding model (TBM) This gives us a tool for understanding the time delay caused by the finite speed of light propagation. The speed of light in these system of units is c ≈ 137.036 a.u
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