Laser-assisted electron–molecular-ion radiative recombination

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Abstract
We formulate a theory of laser-assisted radiative recombination of electron with diatomic homonuclear ion in a linearly polarized laser field using the S -matrix formalism. We investigate how the multicenter molecular structure modifies the differential power spectra and polarization properties of the emitted x-rays. The emitted spectra exhibit characteristic two-center interference minima whose positions depend on the molecular orientation, internuclear distance, symmetry of the molecular orbital, and the incident electron momentum. We show that the visibility of the interference minima is strongly influenced by the molecular orientation and by the component of the incident electron momentum perpendicular to the laser-field polarization vector. The minima remain comparatively robust against imperfect molecular alignment. In addition, the emitted x-rays remain linearly polarized, while their polarization direction depends on the emitted-photon energy and on the geometry of the recombination process. The obtained results demonstrate that laser-assisted radiative recombination provides direct access to structural and symmetry properties of molecular targets.

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