Tomographic reconstruction of molecular orbitals with twofold mirror antisymmetry: overcoming the nodal plane problem

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel tomographic reconstruction method for molecular orbitals with twofold mirror antisymmetry, effectively resolving the nodal plane problem by using the parallel dipole component in the rotating frame, leading to more accurate orbital images.

Contribution

The authors develop a new approach that overcomes the nodal plane problem in orbital tomography, improving reconstruction accuracy and reliability compared to traditional methods.

Findings

Successfully reconstructs target orbitals avoiding nodal plane issues

Eliminates artificial lobes present in traditional velocity form methods

Provides more reliable molecular orbital images

Abstract

We propose a new method to overcome the nodal plane problem for the tomographic reconstruction of molecular orbitals with twofold mirror antisymmetry in the length form based on high-order harmonic generation. It is shown that, by carrying out the reconstruction procedure in the rotating laboratory frame using the component of the dipole moment parallel to the electron recollision direction, the nodal plane problem is avoided and the target orbital is successfully reconstructed. Moreover, it is found that, the proposed method can completely avoid the additional artificial lobes found in the results from the traditional method in the velocity form and therefore provides a more reliable reproduction of the target orbital.