Schüler M., Pavlyukh Y., and Berakdar J.

Photoemission from diatomic molecules closely resembles the Young-type double-slit experiment where each of the two atomic sites represents a coherent emission source. When the photoelectron wavelength becomes commensurate with the effective interatomic distance, the resulting spatial interference gives rise to oscillations in the photoionization total and differential cross sections. This phenomenon provides detailed information on the molecular geometry, a fact that can be utilized for probing the nuclear dynamics triggered by the interaction with a laser field. We demonstrate how this coherent wave-packet evolution can be traced by observing the photoelectron angular distribution. Based on ab initio scattering calculations we perform a proof-of-principle reconstruction of the nuclear-wave-packet evolution in the HeH2+ molecule.

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