Dissociating diatomic molecules in ultrafast and intense light

Abstract

An $\mathit{ab\ initio}$ theory is devised for the quantum dynamics of molecules undergoing (multiple) ionization in ultrafast and intense light. Specifically, the intertwined problem of photoionization, radiative, and electronic transitions in the course of dissociation is addressed which arises, e.g., when molecules are exposed to XUV light or x rays from free electron lasers or attosecond light sources, but the approach is equally useful in optical strong-field physics. The coherent interaction of the molecule with the light in a specific charge state is also treated. I set out from an abstract formulation in terms of the quantum optical notion of system-reservoir interaction using a master equation in Lindblad form and analyze its short-time approximation. First, I express it in a direct sum rigged Hilbert space for an efficient solution with numerical methods for systems of differential equations. Second, I derive a treatment via quantum Monte Carlo wave packet (MCWP) propagation. The formalism is concretized to diatomic molecules in Born-Oppenheimer approximation whereby molecular rotation is disregarded. The numerical integration of the master equation is carried out with a suitably factored density matrix that exploits the locality of the Hamiltonian and the Lindblad superoperator with respect to the internuclear distance. The formulation of the MCWP for molecules requires a thorough analysis of the quantum jump process; namely, the dependence on the continuous distance renders a straight wave packet promotion useless and, instead, a projected outer product needs to be employed involving an integrated quantum jump operator.