MOLECULAR PENDULAR STATES IN INTENSE LASER FIELDS

Direct experimental evidence is presented for the formation of aligned states of the linear triatomic molecules CO2 and CS2; manifestation o f pendular motion is obtained in high-resolution measurements of the a ngular distributions of fragments produced by an intense laser-field-m olecule interaction. Classical calculations of the dissociation dynami cs on an excited-state potential-energy surface yield results that qua litatively reproduce our experimental observations.