Enhanced ionization of hydrogen molecular ions in an intense laser field via a multiphoton resonance

Multiphoton ionization of hydrogen molecular ions in a 480-nm intense laser field is investigated by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation numerically in prolate spheroidal coordinates. We discretize space on a generalized pseudospectral grid and propagate the electronic wave function using a second-order split-operator method. By including and excluding the 2p_u state in the basis expansion, we confirm that the observed 10-eV peak in a recent experiment [Litvinyuk et al., New J. Phys. 10, 083011 (2008)] comes from the enhanced ionization via three-photon resonant excitation of the molecular ions. By folding the calculated ionization rates with the vibrational density distribution, the kinetic energy release spectra are obtained, which are in reasonable agreement with the experimental measurement. Furthermore, using this enhanced ionization, a pump-probe experiment is suggested to trace the vibrational wave packet. ©2010 The American Physical Society