Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

1. Research area - Interaction of molecules with intense ultrashort laser pulses - Study of photochemical and photophysical processes in the nonlinear nonperturbative regime in femto and attosecond time regimes. Molecular dynamics in ultrashort intense laser fields. 2. Methods - i) supercomputer simulations beyond Born-Oppenheimer approximation of electron-nuclear dynamics in intense laser fields. ii) Analytic semiclassical models in strong fields, and optimum control algorithms of augmented Lagrangean type. iii) Maxwell-Schroedinger numerical algorithms on parallel supercomputers for pulse propagation in molecular media. 3. Objectives - Exploring via large scale computations and simulations new applications of ultrashort intense laser pulses to controlling and imaging electron and nuclear dynamics in chemical reactions, to laser control and manipulation of molecules. 4. Summary - The nonlinear nonperturbative interaction of molecules with ultrashort intense laser pulses requires large scale simulations due to the nonseparability of electron-nuclear motion in this regime. Furthermore there is overlap of time-scales of electron-nuclear dynamics, from femto to attoseconds especially for the case of proton motion. Algorithms and models will be developped for parallel supercomputers to investigate the interaction of molecules with intense-ultrashort laser pulses leading to new applications of the current advanced laser technology under the above extreme conditions for : i) generation and application of high order harmonics; ii) attosecond pulse generation and applications to electron control; iii) light manipulation and strong field molecular control of photochemical processes; iv) adaptive molecular control; v) relativistic effects in future ultrastrong fields.