Spin-Polarized Hydrogen Atoms from Molecular Photodissociation

The production of spin-polarized hydrogen atoms from the photodissociation of hydrogen chloride with circularly polarized 193-nanometer light is inferred from the measurement of the complete angular momentum distributions of ground state Cl( 2 P 3/2 )and excited state Cl( 2 P 1/2 )cofragments by slice imaging. The experimentally measured and ab initio predicted [fleqn,10pt,legalpaper]{article} {amssymb} {amsfonts} {amsmath} {empty} {document} \(a_{{\ }q}⁽ᵏ⁾\) {document} ( p )parameters, which describe the single-surface and multiple-surface-interference contributions to the angular momentum distributions, are in excellent agreement. For laser pulses longer than about 0.7 ns, the polarization of the electron and the proton are both 36%.