VUV excitation of a vibrational wavepacket in D2 measured through strong-field dissociative ionization

Femtosecond vacuumultraviolet pulses from amonochromated high harmonic generation source excite vibrational wavepackets in the B1 g S + state ofD2. Thewavepacketmotion ismeasured through strongfield ionization into bound and dissociative ion states yielding D2 + andD products. The time dependence of the D2 + andD ion signals provides a sensitive fingerprint of the quantumnuclear wavepacket, due to the different ionization rates for the two channels. The experiments aremodelled with excitation and ionization processes included explicitly, with the results of themodel showing a very good agreement with the experimental observations. The experiment demonstrates the level of detail attainable when studying ultrafast quantumnuclear dynamics using high harmonic sources.