Importance of one- and two-photon transitions in the strong-field dissociation of NO 2 +

The authors report on a study of the femtosecond laser-induced dissociation of the metastable dication NO${}^{2+}$ into N${}^{+}$ + O${}^{+}$ using coincidence three-dimensional momentum imaging. Their analysis shows the dominant role of the lowest electronic states in the molecular excitation, and the fact that dissociation dominates over ionization by two orders of magnitude.