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ReportsSingle Photon-Induced Symmetry Breaking of H2 DissociationH2, the smallest and most abundant molecule in the universe, has a perfectly symmetric ground state. What does it take to break this symmetry? We found that the inversion symmetry can be broken by absorption of a linearly polarized photon, which itself has inversion symmetry. In particular, the emission of a photoelectron with subsequent dissociation of the remaining H +2 fragment shows no symmetry with respect to the ionic H+ and neutral H atomic fragments. This lack of symmetry results from the entanglement between symmetric and antisymmetric H +2 states that is caused by autoionization. The mechanisms behind this symmetry breaking are general for all molecules.
1 Departamento de Química, C-9, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain. * To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: doerner{at}atom.uni-frankfurt.de
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)
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