HELICITY OF ORIENTATION PARAMETERS OF PHOTOFRAGMENTS IN FLUORESCENCE-IMAGING EXPERIMENTS

A detection scheme in fluorescence-imaging experiments is presented fo r determining helicity of orientation parameters of photofragments pre pared by circularly polarized photolysis lasers. In a framework of den sity matrix theory, explicit fluorescence intensity formulas are deriv ed for detection of right- and left-circularly polarized fluorescence photons in various transition sequences. A pattern recognition from fl uorescence images of photofragments in a state of definite helicity wi th respect to their recoil directions has been established, where diff erences between left- and right-circularly polarized fluorescence imag e patterns should be taken. Information on the coherence among various magnetic sublevels of an angular momentum state can be obtained by mo nitoring fluorescence images in a Delta J = -1 transition (P branch in absorption). (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-9606(98)0 0840-X].