Interferences in photodissociation in the classical limit

Abstract

The interference between different values of the total angular momentum of photofragmentation, and its behavior in the high-J limit, are discussed using the semiclassical angular momentum theory of G. Ponzano and T. Regge [in Spectroscopic and Group Theoretical Methods in Physics, edited by F. Bloch et al. (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1968)]. Taking the angular momentum of an unobserved part as a quantization axis reveals an interesting aspect of the interference in the high-J limit. The result indicates that a high-J limit does not necessarily correspond to a ``classical'' limit. The relation between the representation of angular momentum transfer and of total angular momentum is also obtained in the high-J limit in the same way. This relation completes the quantum derivation of classical results for the polarization of fluorescence excited by photodissociation.