Nonsequential double ionization of stretched molecules by circularly polarized laser pulses

Abstract

Using the classical ensemble method, we have investigated double ionization (DI) of stretched molecules by circularly polarized laser pulses. Back analysis of the DI trajectories shows that most DI occurs through a process of collision, indicating the nonsequential feature of DI. In contrast to the common recollision picture for nonsequential double ionization, here the first electron ionizes over the inner potential barrier of the molecule, moves directly towards the other nucleus and leads to excitation or ionization of the second electron by collision. The correlated momentum distributions for the electron pairs from this collision-induced nonsequential process show an obvious correlation pattern in the direction parallel to the molecular axis, whereas they show an anticorrelation pattern in the direction perpendicular to the molecular axis.