Impact of orbital symmetry on molecular ionization in an intense laser field

Abstract

We investigate the ionization dynamics of one-electron model diatomic molecules with different orbital symmetries ($1{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{g}$ and $1{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{u}$) in a strong laser field via the full three-dimensional time-dependent Schr\odinger equation. It is shown that the ionization probabilities of the molecules with different initial states ($1{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{g}$ and $1{\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{u}$) oscillate out of phase vs internuclear distance, and the photoelectron spectra of the aforementioned two molecules also show out-of-phase oscillation structures. The above intriguing features are well reproduced by the simulations of the length-gauge strong-field approximation, which can be ascribed to the distinct interferences of electronic wave packets released from different atomic centers.