Number: 2007-055-2-100
Title: Ultrafast intense laser chemistry
Task Group
Chairman: Kaoru Yamanouchi
Members: Andre Bandrauk, Gustav Gerber, Ken Ledingham,
and Robert Levis
Objective:
By surveying the current and recent investigations on molecules in
an ultrashort intense laser field, we elucidate how important these
investigations are for fundamental understanding of light-molecule
interaction as well as for controlling chemical and biological reaction
processes, and propose future research directions in this newly emerging
research field.
Description:
Recent development of ultrashort pulsed laser technology enabled
us to investigate molecules interacting with an intense laser field
whose magnitude can even surpasses the Coulomb field within atoms
and molecules. From such investigations, it has been shown that molecules
exhibit a variety of new phenomena such as alignment/orientation,
ultrafast structural deformation, and ultrafast hydrogen migration.
Furthermore, by designing intense pulsed laser fields, it has been
shown that chemical and biological processes can be controlled. It
should also be noted that the generation of attosecond light pulses
has been made through the interaction of intense laser pulses with
atoms and molecules.
Considering the potential applicability of the recent
findings and the advanced laser technologies to wide research areas
in chemistry, we will survey the experimental and theoretical investigations
on molecules in an ultrashort intense laser field in recent years,
elucidate how important these investigations are for fundamental understanding
of light-molecule interactions in the ulstrashort time domain of femtoseconds
and attoseconds as well as for controlling chemical and biological
reaction processes, and propose future research directions in this
newly emerging interdisciplinary research field.
In addition to an annual meeting of the task group,
we plan to hold a school or a workshop for young researchers in a
back-to-back form with one of the task group meeting in order to disseminate
the activities of the project and to promote the research activities
on a worldwide scale under the initiative of the IUPAC Physical and
Biophysical Chemistry Division. The contents of the technical report
as well as the issues discussed in such a workshop or school will
be compiled in a form of a review style book for disseminating the
product of the project.
