Theory of laser catalysis with pulses

The possibility of accelerating molecular reactions by lasers has attracted considerable theoretical and experimental interest. A particular example of laser-modified reaction dynamics is laser catalysis, a process in which the tunneling through a potential barrier is enhanced by transient excitation to a bound electronic state. We have performed detailed calculations of pulsed laser catalysis on one- and two-dimensional potentials, as a function of the reactants' collision energy and the laser's central frequency. In agreement with previous CW results, the reactive lineshapes are Fano-type curves, resulting from interference between nonradiative tunneling and the optically assisted pathway. In contrast to the CW process, the power requirements of pulsed laser catalysis are well within the reach of commonly used pulsed laser sources, making an experimental realization possible. The laser catalysis scenario is shown to be equivalent in the ``dressed'' state picture, to resonant tunneling through a double-barrier potential, admitting perfect transmission when the incident energy matches a quasibound state of the well within the barriers. Possible applications for atom optics, solid-state devices, and scanning tunneling microscopy, are discussed.