Enhanced dissociation of H2+ into highly excited states via laser-induced sequential resonant excitation

Abstract: We study the dissociation of H$_2$$^+$ in uv laser pulses by solving the non-Born-Oppenheimer time-dependent Schr\"{o}dinger equation as a function of the photon energy $\omega$ of the pulse. Significant enhancements of the dissociation into highly excited electronic states are observed at critical $\omega$. This is found to be attributed to a sequential resonant excitation mechanism where the population is firstly transferred to the first excited state by absorbing one photon and sequentially to higher states by absorbing another one or more photons at the same internuclear distance. We have substantiated the underlying dynamics by separately calculating the nuclear kinetic energy spectra for individual dissociation pathways through different electronic states.