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    Mapping the Dissociative Ionization Dynamics of Molecular Nitrogen with Attosecond Time Resolution
    (College Park, Md. : APS, 2015) Trabattoni, A.; Klinker, M.; González-Vázquez, J.; Liu, C.; Sansone, G.; Linguerri, R.; Hochlaf, M.; Klei, J.; Vrakking, M. J. J.; Martín, F.; Nisoli, M.; Calegari, F.
    Studying the interaction of molecular nitrogen with extreme ultraviolet (XUV) radiation is of prime importance to understand radiation-induced processes occurring in Earth’s upper atmosphere. In particular, photoinduced dissociation dynamics involving excited states of N2+ leads to N and N+ atomic species that are relevant in atmospheric photochemical processes. However, tracking the relaxation dynamics of highly excited states of N2+ is difficult to achieve, and its theoretical modeling is notoriously complex. Here, we report on an experimental and theoretical investigation of the dissociation dynamics of N2+ induced by isolated attosecond XUV pulses in combination with few-optical-cycle near-infrared/visible (NIR/VIS) pulses. The momentum distribution of the produced N+ fragments is measured as a function of pump-probe delay with subfemtosecond resolution using a velocity map imaging spectrometer. The time-dependent measurements reveal the presence of NIR/VIS-induced transitions between N2+ states together with an interference pattern that carries the signature of the potential energy curves activated by the XUV pulse. We show that the subfemtosecond characterization of the interference pattern is essential for a semiquantitative determination of the repulsive part of these curves.
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    Coulomb explosion of diatomic molecules in intense XUV fields mapped by partial covariance
    (Bristol : Institute of Physics Publishing, 2013) Kornilov, O.; Eckstein, M.; Rosenblatt, M.; Schulz, C.P.; Motomura, K.; Rouzée, A.; Klei, J.; Foucar, L.; Siano, M.; Lübcke, A.; Schapper, F.; Johnsson, P.; Holland, D.M.P.; Schlathölter, T.; Marchenko, T.; Düsterer, S.; Ueda, K.; Vrakking, M.J.J.; Frasinski, L.J.
    Single-shot time-of-flight spectra for Coulomb explosion of N2 and I2 molecules have been recorded at the Free Electron LASer in Hamburg (FLASH) and have been analysed using a partial covariance mapping technique. The partial covariance analysis unravels a detailed picture of all significant Coulomb explosion pathways, extending up to the N 4+-N5+ channel for nitrogen and up to the I 8+-I9+ channel for iodine. The observation of the latter channel is unexpected if only sequential ionization processes from the ground state ions are considered. The maximum kinetic energy release extracted from the covariance maps for each dissociation channel shows that Coulomb explosion of nitrogen molecules proceeds much faster than that of the iodine. The N 2 ionization dynamics is modelled using classical trajectory simulations in good agreement with the outcome of the experiments. The results suggest that covariance mapping of the Coulomb explosion can be used to measure the intensity and pulse duration of free-electron lasers.
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    XUV excitation followed by ultrafast non-adiabatic relaxation in PAH molecules as a femto-astrochemistry experiment
    ([London] : Nature Publishing Group UK, 2015) Marciniak, A.; Despré, V.; Barillot, T.; Rouzée, A.; Galbraith, M.C.E.; Klei, J.; Yang, C.-H.; Smeenk, C.T.L.; Loriot, V.; Nagaprasad Reddy, S.; Tielens, A.G.G.M.; Mahapatra, S.; Kuleff, A.I.; Vrakking, M.J.J.; Lépine, F.
    Highly excited molecular species are at play in the chemistry of interstellar media and are involved in the creation of radiation damage in a biological tissue. Recently developed ultrashort extreme ultraviolet light sources offer the high excitation energies and ultrafast time-resolution required for probing the dynamics of highly excited molecular states on femtosecond (fs) (1 fs=10−15s) and even attosecond (as) (1 as=10−18 s) timescales. Here we show that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) undergo ultrafast relaxation on a few tens of femtoseconds timescales, involving an interplay between the electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom. Our work reveals a general property of excited radical PAHs that can help to elucidate the assignment of diffuse interstellar absorption bands in astrochemistry, and provides a benchmark for the manner in which coupled electronic and nuclear dynamics determines reaction pathways in large molecules following extreme ultraviolet excitation.
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    Mapping the dissociative ionization dynamics of molecular nitrogen with attosecond resolution
    (Bristol : IOP Publ., 2015) Klinker, M.; Trabattoni, A.; González-Vázquez, J.; Liu, C.; Sansone, G.; Linguerri, R.; Hochlaf, M..; Klei, J.; Vrakking, M.J.J.; Martin, F.; Nisoli, M.; Calegari, F.
    We wish to understand the processes underlying the ionization dynamics of N2 as experimentally induced and studied by recording the kinetic energy release (KER) in a XUV-pump/IR-probe setup. To this end a theoretical model was developed describing the ionization process using Dyson Orbitals and, subsequently, the dissociation process using a large set of diabatic potential energy surfaces (PES) on which to propagate. From said set of PES, a small subset is extracted allowing for the identification of one and two photon processes chiefly responsible for the experimentally observed features.