The ionization of one-electron diatomic molecules in strong and short laser fields

The dynamics of multiphoton processes with strong fields and short pulses in one-electron diatomic molecules is investigated, solving the time dependent Schrodinger equation. We propose a spectral type method, which uses L2 functions and prolate spheroidal coordinates. The approach is applied to the cases of two- and three-photon ionization of H(2)+, with a photon energy of 0.6 au and parallel polarization. In the three-photon ionization case, above threshold ionization occurs. We investigate, in particular, the limit of perturbation theory, and the photoelectron spectrum is calculated for the different open channels. The case of perpendicular polarization, where one-photon absorption is important, is investigated. Finally, we determine the final vibrational states of the nuclei for the case of two-photon ionization.