Photoelectron angular distributions in molecular above threshold ionization by two colour circularly polarized ultrashort UV laser pulses

Abstract

Photoionization of an aligned molecular ion H has been investigated with two colour circularly polarized ultrashort UV laser pulses by numerically solving the corresponding time dependent Schrödinger equation. Photoelectron angular distributions (PADs) in molecular above threshold ionization (MATI) exhibit: (i) asymmetry resulting from interference of coherent electron wave packets from multiple pathway ionization, which depends critically on the relative carrier envelope phase (CEP) between the two colour laser pulses and photoelectron kinetic energies; (ii) rotation with respect to the molecular symmetry axes due to effects of the nonspherical two center Coulomb potential. Such features are described by multi-photon perturbative theoretical ionization models. The ionization probability is functions of both the CEP and the angle between the electron emission and the molecular axis. The influence of pulse intensity and ellipticity on PADs in MATI is also investigated. It is found that the asymmetry depends on the pulse intensity whereas the rotation angle is shown to be sensitive to the pulse ellipticity, both reflecting the orientation dependence of molecular ionization probabilities.