Nonsequential double ionization of the hydrogen molecule in a few-cycle laser pulse

We present ab initio calculations of the interaction of the hydrogen molecule with an intense few-cycle near-infrared laser pulse beyond the one-dimensional approximation. The results show that the two pathways to nonsequential double ionization of the molecule, namely, the emission of a correlated electron pair near the zeros of the field and the electron emission from the previously excited molecular ion near the maxima of the field, are linked to the return of the initially singly ionized electron wave packet to the residual ion. Patterns in the double ionization probability distributions arise due to interference effects between different quantum paths.