Above-threshold ionization in multicenter molecules: The role of the initial state

A possible route to extract electronic and nuclear dynamics from molecular targets with attosecond temporal and nanometer spatial resolution is to employ recolliding electrons as “probes.” The recollision process in molecules is, however, very challenging to treat using ab initio approaches. Even for the simplest diatomic systems, such as , today's computational $H_2$ capabilities are not enough to give a complete description of the electron and nuclear dynamics initiated by a strong laser field. As a consequence, approximate qualitative descriptions are called to play an important role. In this paper we extend the work presented in Suárez et al. [N. Suárez, A. Chacón, J. A. Pérez-Hernández, J. Biegert, M. Lewenstein, and M. F. Ciappina, High-order-harmonic generation in atomic and molecular systems, Phys. Rev. A 95, 033415 (2017)] to three-center molecular targets. Additionally, we incorporate a more accurate description of the molecular ground state, employing information extracted from quantum chemistry software packages. This step forward allows us to include, in a detailed way, both the molecular symmetries and nodes present in the high-occupied molecular orbital. We are able, on the one hand, to keep our formulation as analytical as in the case of diatomics and, on the other hand, to still give a complete description of the underlying physics behind the above-threshold ionization process. The application of our approach to complex multicenter—with more than three centers—targets appears to be straightforward.