Electron-nucleus energy sharing in attosecond photoionization of the dissociative hydrogen molecular ion
Phys. Rev. A 113, 013108 – Published 8 January, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/3s5y-mp4d
Abstract
We systematically investigate the attosecond joint energy spectra (JESs) of the dissociative wave packet of by numerically solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. The dissociative wave packet, initially prepared by a resonant pump pulse and subsequently ionized by a single-attosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulse with a variable time delay, produces time-resolved JESs that exhibit splitting and distorted structures, encoding rich information on ultrafast molecular dynamics. Interestingly, variations in the slopes of the energy-sharing lines in the JESs are observed, in contrast to the ground-state scenario where the slope is . The origin of the slope variations is well explained by an analytical model combined with the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation, and is attributed to the dispersion relation of the dissociative nuclear wave packet. Based on these findings, we propose a novel method for imaging the molecular potential energy curves, which remains robust even when the JESs are distorted by two-center interference.