High energy proton ejection from hydrocarbon molecules driven by highly efficient field ionization

The paper reports on the observation of an ionization-fragmentation process that puts a polyatomic molecule into a very high charge state of +12 and beyond at laser intensities as low as a few 10¹⁴ W/cm² and subsequently leads to complete molecular decomposition. Experimental evidence shows that all of the molecule´s protons are ejected with high kinetic energies, which is inconsistent with the explanation based on dynamic charge localization used in the work of Markenvitch et. al, to explain the proton energy. Furthermore, the energies of all the protons are very similar, which indicates that at the instance of decomposition the protons interact with the same molecular charge state, suggesting an all-at-once (concerted) fragmentation scenario.