Nuclear Fluxes in Diatomic Molecules Deduced from Pump-Probe Spectra with Spatiotemporal Resolutions down to 5 pm and 200 asec

Jörn Manz, Jhon Fredy Pérez-Torres, and Yonggang Yang
Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 153004 – Published 10 October 2013

Abstract

When molecules move, their nuclei flow. The corresponding quantum observable, i.e., the nuclear flux density, was introduced by Schrödinger in 1926, but until now, it has not been measured. Here the first experimental results are deduced from high-resolution pump-probe measurements of the time-dependent nuclear densities in a vibrating diatomic molecule or molecular ion. The nuclear densities are converted to flux densities by means of the continuity equation. The flux densities are much more sensitive to time-dependent quantum effects than the densities. Applications to the sodium molecule and the deuterium molecular ion unravel four new effects; e.g., at the turns from bond stretch to compression, the flux of the nuclei exhibits multiple changes of directions, from small to large bond lengths, a phenomenon that we call the “quantum accordion.”

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  • Received 1 June 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.153004

© 2013 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Jörn Manz*

  • State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy, Shanxi University, 92 Wucheng Road, Taiyuan 030006, China and Institut für Chemie und Biochemie, Freie Universität Berlin, Takustraße 3, 14195 Berlin, Germany

Jhon Fredy Pérez-Torres

  • Institut für Chemie und Biochemie, Freie Universität Berlin, Takustraße 3, 14195 Berlin, Germany

Yonggang Yang

  • State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy, Shanxi University, 92 Wucheng Road, Taiyuan 030006, China

  • *jmanz@chemie.fu-berlin.de

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Vol. 111, Iss. 15 — 11 October 2013

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