Following Ultrafast Radiationless Relaxation Dynamics With Strong Field Dissociative Ionization: A Comparison Between Adenine, Uracil, and Cytosine

We present the application of ultrafast time- and mass-resolved ion yield laser spectroscopy in conjunction with ab initio electronic structure calculations to track molecular excited-state dynamics. We discuss how molecular fragment ions can be associated with conformations the molecule assumes during its relaxation, and how various features of the pump-probe signal for those fragments can be used to infer details of the excited-state dynamics. We present results for radiationless relaxation in DNA and RNA bases adenine, cytosine, and uracil in the gas phase, pumped near a one-photon resonance transition to an excited state, and probed via strong-field near-IR dissociative ionization.