Coherent two-photon emission from hydrogen molecules excited by counter-propagating laser pulses

We observed two-photon emission (TPE) signal from the first vibrationally excited state of parahydrogen gas coherently excited by counter-propagating laser pulses. A single narrow-linewidth laser source has roles in the excitation of the parahydrogen molecules and the induction of the TPE process. We measured dependences of the signal energy on the detuning, target gas pressure, and input pulse energies. These results are qualitatively consistent with those obtained by numerical simulations based on Maxwell-Bloch equations with one spatial dimension and one temporal dimension. This study of the TPE process in the counter-propagating injection scheme is an important step toward neutrino mass spectroscopy.