Laser-kick induced helium dimer dynamics---a two-body interferometer
POSTER
Abstract
The $^4$He-dimer, one of the most weakly bound molecules in nature, gets gently kicked by a short intense laser pulse. This laser-kick, which is most prominently felt at small internuclear separations, induces both rotation and dissociation of the helium dimer. Due to the interplay between the bound and the dissociative portions of the wave packet, dynamical interference patterns in the alignment signal are observed experimentally. Our parameter-free theory results are in excellent agreement with the experimental results. The dynamics, which sensitively depends on the length of the laser pulse, is proposed to be used to probe the tunability of the helium-helium interaction by an external electric field. Our results are expected to guide the next generation of experiments
*Support by NSF is acknowledged.