State-selective vibrational excitation and dissociation of H2+ by strong infrared laser pulses: below-resonant versus resonant laser fields and electron-field following.

The quantum dynamics of vibrational excitation and dissociation of H(2)(+) by strong and temporally shaped infrared (IR) laser pulses has been studied on the femtosecond (fs) time scale by numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation with explicit treatment of nuclear and electron motion beyond the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. Using sin(2)-shaped laser pulses of 120 fs duration with a peak intensity of I(0) > 10(14) W/cm(2), it has been found that below-resonant vibrational excitation with a laser carrier frequency of ω < ω(10)/2 (where ω(10) is the frequency of the |v = 0> → |v = 1> vibrational transition) is much more efficient than a quasi-resonant vibrational excitation at ω ≈ ω(10). In particular, at the below-resonant laser carrier frequency ω = 0.3641 × 10(-2) au (799.17 cm(-1)), dissociation probabilities of H(2)(+) (15.3% at the end of the 120 fs laser pulse and 21% at t = 240 fs) are more than 3 orders of magnitude higher than those obtained for the quasi-resonant laser frequency ω = 1.013 × 10(-2) au (2223.72 cm(-1)). Probabilities of state-selective population transfer to vibrational states |v = 1>, |v = 2>, and |v = 3> from the vibrational ground state |v = 0> of about 85% have been calculated in the optimal below-resonant cases. The underlying mechanism of the efficient below-resonant vibrational excitation is the electron-field following and simultaneous transfer of energy to the nuclear coordinate.