Chirped pulse ionization: bondlength dynamics and interference effects

Ionization with chirped pulses is studied using the Na2 molecule as a numerical example. Bondlength expectation-values are determined for different linear chirp parameters. It is shown that under certain conditions the photoelectron spectra can exhibit a pronounced interference structure which has an analogy in oscillatory patterns and the rainbow structure found in the scattering amplitude for atom–atom collisions.