Description of multiphoton collisionless dissociation of isotopes of the SF6 molecule
A solution is obtained for the evolution operator of a multilevel system interacting with a monochromatic field containing no secular terms. This is used to describe the initial stage of excitation of the ..nu../sub 3/ mode of the SF/sub 6/ molecule. Excitation in the quasicontinuum band is described by the diffusion equation. An equation is derived for the probability of dissociation of isotopes of the SF/sub 6/ molecule as a function of the field parameters and the temperature. The experimental results are accurately approximated by this equation. The possibility of isotopically selective excitation of heavy molecules having a small isotope shift in a field of 10/sup 10/ W/cm/sup 2/ intensity is discussed.