Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 9: Interaction with VUV and X-ray light (FEL) II

A 9.7: Talk

Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 12:45–13:00, BAR 205

Molecular clusters in strong X-ray pulses — •Pierfrancesco Di Cintio, Christian Gnodtke, Ulf Saalmann, and Jan Michael Rost — Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany

Atomic cluster in short and intense laser pulses have received much attention in recent years as they are tunable targets for intense laser-matter interaction. This applies to “conventional” near infrared pulses as well as to VUV and X-ray pulses available from new and upcoming free-electron laser machines. Molecular cluster add another degree of freedom and may thus be a tool to approach the damage processes of large organic molecules as they occur during coherent diffractive imaging with intense X-ray pulses.

Here we present theoretical studies of methane clusters under short X-ray pulses. We observe the segregation of carbon ions and protons in agreement with recent measurements at LCLS by Ditmire et al. [1]. Our microscopic calculations allow for quantitative studies of the proton emission as well as the localization of trapped electrons around the carbon ions which may lead to effective recombination.

[1] T. Ditmire, private communication (2010).