Strong-field induced bond rearrangement in triatomic molecules*

A comparative study of strong-field induced bond rearrangement is carried out for three triatomic molecules: carbon dioxide (CO$_2$), carbonyl sulfide (OCS), and water (D$_2$O). Specifically, we use COLTRIMS to measure the branching ratio for the formation of AC$^+$ from ABC$^{2+}$ following double ionization by intense, short (23 fs, 790 nm) laser pulses. Our study shows that the branching ratio of D$_2$O$^{2+} \rightarrow$ D$_2^+$ + O$^+$ is higher than that of CO$_2^{2+} \rightarrow$ O$_2^+$ + C$^+$, which in turn is higher than that of OCS$^{2+} \rightarrow$ SO$^+$ + C$^+$, although all three values are within an order of magnitude of each other. Additionally, we examined the isotopic and linear-chirp dependencies of bond rearrangement in water.