Rotation-vibration mixing of heteronuclear dimers in strong electric fields

¹ Departamento de Física Moderna and Instituto “Carlos I” de Física Teórica y Computacional, Universidad de Granada - E-18071 Granada, Spain
² Theoretische Chemie, Physikalisch-Chemisches Institut - Im Neuenheimer Feld 229 D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany
³ Physikalisches Institut, Universität Heidelberg - Philosophenweg 12 D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany

Corresponding authors: rogonzal@ugr.es Peter.Schmelcher@pci.uni-heidelberg.de

Received: 5 July 2005
Accepted: 20 September 2005

Abstract

We investigate the evolution of the rovibrational spectrum of heteronuclear diatomic molecules exposed to a strong static electric field. The field induces avoided crossings causing a strong mixing of the electrically dressed rovibrational states. At the avoided crossing the molecular configuration is a strongly distorted and asymmetric one showing well-pronounced localization effects of the corresponding probability densities. The potential impact of our findings on the state-selective chemical reaction dynamics is discussed.