Development of nonresonant optimal control simulation to include polarization effects of laser pulses

We extend our previous optimal control simulation to explicitly include the polarization effects of a laser pulse. The simulation is applied to a rigid rotor model of a nitrogen molecule with two illustrative objectives to evaluate its numerical performance and examine the role of optimal time-dependent polarization vectors. The first example aims at aligning a molecule along the space-fixed z-axis that is perpendicular to the polarization vectors on the xy-plane, which leads to a circularly polarized pulse as an optimal solution. The second objective is to create a rotational wave packet that aligns two directions specified by y = ±x simultaneously. The optimal polarization direction changes with time from y = +x to y = -x, alternately. These examples illustrate the importance of examining an optimal pulse as a vector wave, and the present simulation provides a useful means to explore the best (time-dependent) polarization conditions of a laser pulse.