The role of permanent dipole transitions in strong-field molecular dissociation

The difficulty of finding signatures of permanent dipole transitions in strong-field molecular dissociation is well documented. The difficulty stems from two factors: (1) the standard strong-field laser wavelength of 800~nm is generally not well suited to driving purely nuclear transitions and (2) other mechanisms, such as non-adiabatic coupling, often compete with permanent dipole transitions, obscuring their effect on physical observables. We will present a theoretical study that helps elucidate the role each of these mechanisms plays. Numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation in the Born-Oppenheimer representation are used to calculate the kinetic energy release spectra for the dissociation of HD$^+$ exposed to short, intense laser pulses. We will analyze these solutions to isolate and quantify the effect of permanent dipole transitions and show their dependence on the laser parameters.