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(P-2(3/2)) and excited state Cl(P-2(1/2)) cofragments by slice imaging. The experimentally measured and ab initio predicted a(q)((k))(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%.