Alignment determination of symmetric top molecule using rotationally resolved LIF Original Research Article

This paper presents a concrete theoretical treatment which can be used for transforming the laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) intensity into the population and alignment parameters of a symmetric top molecule. The molecular population and alignment are described by molecular state multipoles. The results are presented in a general excitation–detection geometry and then specialized in some special geometries. The problem how to extract the initial molecular state multipoles from the rotationally resolved LIF intensity is discussed in detail.