Imaging of the umbrella motion and tunneling in the ammonia molecule by strong-field ionization

TL;DR

This paper investigates how strong-field ionization depends on ammonia's geometry, demonstrating methods to create, probe, and image nuclear wave packets and tunneling dynamics in real time.

Contribution

It compares theoretical approaches for ionization yield, showing their dependence on molecular geometry and enabling real-time imaging of tunneling in ammonia.

Findings

Ionization yield strongly depends on inversion coordinate at long wavelengths

Methods to create and probe nuclear wave packets in ammonia are demonstrated

Real-time imaging of wave packet tunneling through a double-well potential is discussed

Abstract

The geometry-dependent ionization behavior of the ammonia molecule is investigated. Different theoretical approaches for obtaining the ionization yield are compared, all of them showing a strong dependence of the ionization yield on the inversion coordinate at long wavelengths ($\geq$ 800 nm). It is shown how this effect can be exploited to create and probe nuclear wave packets in neutral ammonia using Lochfra{\ss}. Furthermore, imaging of a wave packet tunneling through the barrier of a double-well potential in real time is discussed.