Alignment and Trapping of Molecules in Intense Laser Fields

The anisotropic interaction of the electric field vector of intense laser radiation with the dipole moment induced in a polarizable molecule by the laser field creates aligned pendular states. These are directional superpositions of field-free states, corresponding to oblate spheroidal wave functions, with eigenenergies that decrease with increasing field strength. We present calculations demonstrating the utility of these states for both laser alignment and spatial trapping of molecules.