Enhancement of the recoil effect in x-ray photoelectron spectra of molecules driven by a strong ir field -: art. no. 023414

The C K and O K x-ray photoelectron spectra of the CO molecule, driven by a strong ir field, are studied theoretically. An enhancement of the recoil effect, which results in a strong dependence of the electron vibrational profile on the energy of x-ray photon, is found. The enhancement of the recoil effect happens due to an ir-induced increase of the wave-packet size. An extra enhancement occurs when the gradients of ground and ionized states approach each other. Under an increase of the photon energy, different sides of the x-ray photoelectron band experience blue- and redshifts, which are related to the difference of the gradients of the ground and core ionized states in the points of the vertical transitions near turning points of the wave packet. This makes the ir-x-ray pump-probe spectroscopy a very promising tool to study the shape of the potential energy surfaces.