Topology of surfaces for molecular Stark energy, alignment and orientation generated by combined permanent and induced electric dipole interactions

Abstract

We show that combined permanent and induced electric dipole interactions of polar and polarizable molecules with collinear electric fields lead to a sui generis topology of the corresponding Stark energy surfaces and of other observables -- such as alignment and orientation cosines -- in the plane spanned by the permanent and induced dipole interaction parameters. We find that the loci of the intersections of the surfaces can be traced analytically and that the eigenstates as well as the number of their intersections can be characterized by a single integer index. The value of the index, distinctive for a particular ratio of the interaction parameters, brings out a close kinship with the eigenproperties obtained previously for a class of Stark states via the apparatus of supersymmetric quantum mechanics.