Effect of nuclear motion on high-order harmonic generation of H$_2^+$ in intense ultrashort laser pulses

Abstract

High-order harmonic generation is investigated for H$_2^+$ and D$_2^+$ with and without Born-Oppenheimer approximation by numerical solution of full dimensional electronic time-dependent Schr\"{o}dinger equation under 4-cycle intense laser pulses of 800 nm wavelength and $I$=4, 5, 7, 10 $\times 10^{14}$ W$/$cm$^2$ intensities. For most harmonic orders, the intensity obtained for D$_2^+$ is higher than that for H$_2^+$, and the yield difference increases as the harmonic order increases. Only at some low harmonic orders, H$_2^+$ generates more intense harmonics compared to D$_2^+$. The results show that nuclear motion, ionization probability and system dimensionality must be simultaneously taken into account to properly explain the isotopic effects on high-order harmonic generation and to justify experimental observations.