Dissociative ionization of the H2 molecule under a strong elliptically polarized laser field: carrier-envelope phase and orientation effect

Abstract

A coupled electron–nuclear dynamical study is performed to investigate the sub-cycle dissociation and ionization of the H₂ molecule in a strong 750 nm 4.5 fs elliptically polarized laser pulse. A quasi-classical method is employed in which additional momentum-dependent potentials are added to the molecular Hamiltonian to account for the non-classical effects. The effect of molecular orientation with respect to the laser polarization plane on the probabilities of different dynamical channels and proton energy spectra has been examined. We demonstrate the 2D-control of proton anisotropy by manipulating the carrier-envelope phase of the pulse. We demonstrate that the quasi-classical method can capture the carrier-envelope phase effects in the dissociative ionization of the H₂ molecule. Our results indicate that the classical models provide an efficient approach to study the mechanistic insights of strong-field molecular dynamics.