Tracing the origins of an asymmetric momentum distribution for polar molecules in strong linearly polarized laser fields

Abstract

We study the ionization dynamics of oriented ${\mathrm{HeH}}^{+}$ in strong linearly polarized laser fields by numerically solving the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation. The calculated photoelectron momentum distributions for parallel orientation show a striking asymmetric structure. With a developed model pertinent to polar molecules, we trace the electron motion in real time. We show that this asymmetric structure arises from the interplay of the Coulomb effect and the permanent dipole in strong laser fields. This structure can be used to probe the degree of orientation which is important in ultrafast experiments for polar molecules. We also check our results for other polar molecules such as CO and BF.