State interactions and illumination of hidden states through perturbations and observations of new states: High energy resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization of HI.

Hydrogen iodide, a Hund's case (c) molecule, serves as a benchmark compound for studying rich molecular state interactions between Rydberg and valence states as well as between Rydberg states at high energies (72,300-74,600 cm(-1)) by mass resolved resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI). Perturbations in the spectra appearing as deformations in line-positions, line-intensities, and linewidths are found to be either due to near-degenerate or non-degenerate interactions, both homogeneous and heterogeneous in nature. Perturbation analyses allow indirect observation as well as characterization of "hidden states" to some extent. Furthermore, new observable spectral features are assigned and characterized.