Regular Article

Photoelectron holography of the H₂⁺ molecule

¹ Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Budapest H-1121, Hungary
² National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies, Donat 61-103, Cluj-Napoca Ro-400293, Romania
³ Faculty of Physics, Babeş-Bolyai University, Kogălniceanu 1, Cluj-Napoca Ro-400084, Romania
⁴ ELI-ALPS, ELI-HU Non-profit Ltd., Dugonics tér 13, Szeged H-6720, Hungary

^a e-mail: zsolt.kiss@itim-cj.ro

Received: 30 May 2019
Received in final form: 28 February 2020
Published online: 18 June 2020

Abstract

We investigate the photoelectron spectrum of the H₂⁺ target induced by few-cycle XUV laser pulses using first principle calculations. In the photoelectron spectrum, by performing calculations for different internuclear separations, we investigate how the structure of the target is influencing the spatial interference pattern. This interference pattern is created by the coherent superposition of electronic wave packets emitted at the same time, but following different paths. We find that the location of the interference minima in the spectra is dominantly determined by the target’s ionization energy, however, by comparing the H₂⁺ results with model calculations with spherically symmetric potentials, clear differences were observed for the molecular potential relative to the central potentials. Next to the main feature (spatial interference) we have also identified the traces of the two-center interference in the photoelectron spectrum, however, these were mainly washed out due to the complex electronic wave packet dynamics that occurs during the interaction with the considered laser field.