Nondipole effects on the double-slit interference in molecular ionization by xuv pulses.

Abstract

The double-slit interference in single-photon ionization of the diatomic molecular ion H2 + is theoretically studied beyond the dipole approximation. Via simulating and comparing the interactions of the prealigned H2 + and the hydrogen atom with the xuv pulses propagating in different directions, we illustrate two kinds of effects that are encoded in the interference patterns of the photoelectrons from H2 +: the single-atom nondipole effect and the two-center-interference one, both associated with the finite speed of light. While the two effects could modify the maxima of the interference fringes, we show that the former one hardly affects the interference minima. Our results and analysis show that the interference minima rule out the influences of the photon-momentum transfer and, potentially, the multielectron effect, thus performing a better role in decoding the zeptosecond time delay for the pulse hitting one and the other atomic centers of the molecule.