Observation of coherence effects in the polarization of Lyman-α fluorescence following photodissociation of H2

Abstract The degree of linear polarization of Lyman-α fluorescence following photodissociation of H 2 into H(ls) + H(2 l ) has been measured at different excitation energies. The polarization as a function of the excess energy of the photofragments was observed to oscillate between about 0.1 and 0.2, in qualitative agreement with ab initio predictions of Glass-Maujean and Beswick.