Bifurcations as dissociation mechanism in bichromatically driven diatomic molecules.

We discuss the influence of periodic orbits on the dissociation of a model diatomic molecule driven by a strong bichromatic laser fields. Through the stability of periodic orbits, we analyze the dissociation probability when parameters, such as the two amplitudes and the phase lag between the laser fields, are varied. We find that qualitative features of dissociation can be reproduced by considering a small set of short periodic orbits. The good agreement with direct simulations demonstrates the importance of bifurcations of short periodic orbits in the dissociation dynamics of diatomic molecules.