Carrier-envelope phase control of electron motion in laser-driven H₃²⁺

The triatomic molecular ion H 3 2+ exposed to a few-cycle, circularly polarized laser pulse is studied. The model employed includes three electronic states and three degrees of freedom for the nuclear wave function, thereby enabling the three protons to form a general triangle. We show that by varying the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of the laser pulse, we can select the proton to which the electron finally binds after the dissociation is completed. Analysis of the time-dependent wave function reveals that the molecular shape remains close to an equilateral triangle during the laser pulse, and that the results of the three-dimensional (3D) simulations can be interpreted with an effective one-dimensional (1D) model.