Ultrafast X-ray Diffraction Probe of Coherent Spin-state Dynamics in Molecules
Abstract
We propose an approach to probe coherent spin-state dynamics of molecules using circularly polarized hard x-ray pulses. For the dynamically aligned nitric oxide molecules in a coherent superposition spin-orbit coupled electronic state that can be prepared through stimulated Raman scattering, we demonstrate the capability of ultrafast x-ray diffraction to not only reveal the quantum beating of the coherent spin-state wave packet, but also image the spatial spin density of the molecule. With circularly polarized ultrafast x-ray diffraction signal, we show that the electronic density matrix can be retrieved. The spatio-temporal resolving power of ultrafast x-ray diffraction paves the way for tracking transient spatial wave function in molecular dynamics involving spin degree of freedom.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2401.00259,
title = {Ultrafast X-ray Diffraction Probe of Coherent Spin-state Dynamics in Molecules},
author = {Xiaoyu Mi and Ming Zhang and Zheng Li},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.00259},
year = {2024}
}