Pendular States of Highly Vibrationally Excited Molecules

Abstract

The behavior of coherent field-induced hybrids of field-free rotor states ({open_quotes}pendular states{close_quotes}) is studied in energy regions where intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution phenomena are important. The energy region corresponding to the 4{nu}{sub 1} band system of HCCF molecules, at approximately 12thinsp800 cm{sup {minus}1} , has been chosen as an example. The calculations show that the expectation value of the orientation of molecules prepared in nonstationary pendular bright states exhibits a slow decay to the equilibrium value. Therefore the molecules substantially conserve their initial orientation after intramolecular vibrational redistribution takes place. {copyright} {ital 1999} {ital The American Physical Society}