STRUCTURES INDUCED BY LASER IN DEGENERATE CONTINUA FOR THE COHERENT CONTROL OF IONIZATION BRANCHING RATIOS

We study a photoionization process where the branching ratio of the ph otoproducts is actively modulated by the presence of laser induced con tinuum structures in a two continua model. This extension is suitable for an analysis of different coherent control processes in degenerate continua such as photoionization in atoms and molecules or photodissoc iation in molecules. The peculiar characteristics of this control sche me, already used in recent experiments, are analysed for different reg imes of intensity of the lasers. A comparison with other schemes of co herent control is also presented. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.