Attosecond light-pulse-induced photoassociation

We explore stimulated photoassociation in the context of attosecond pump-probe schemes of atomic matter. An attosecond pulse—the probe—is used to induce photoassociation of an electronic wave packet which had been created before, typically with an attosecond pump pulse at an atomic center different from the one of photoassociation. We will show that the electron absorption is maximal for a certain delay between the pulses. Two ways of enhancing and controlling stimulated photoassociation are proposed, namely, using an additional infrared pulse to steer the electronic wave packet and using a train of attosecond pulses instead of a single pair. A direct application of ultrafast stimulated photoassociation is the measurement of atomic distances.