The Hydrogen Molecular Ion in an Intense Elliptically Polarized Laser Pulse

Abstract

We investigate how the simplest molecular ion, Dihydrogen (H2 +), reacts when exposed to an intense ultrashort laser pulse. We use a computer code written in parallel FORTRAN, which is run on a Drake-owned cluster. The program uses a finite-element method to numerically solve the Schrödinger equation for the ion’s electron. We determine the ground-state energy via imaginary time propagation. After generating the initial wave function of the electron, we consider the effect of a strong laser pulse striking the system. Specifically, we investigate the survival probability of the initial state as a function of the laser intensity and the electric polarization vector. We will show snapshots of the probability density for finding the electron in space at various times in the pulse.