Intense laser alignment in dissipative media as a route to solvent dynamics.

We extend the concept of alignment by short intense pulses to dissipative environments within a density matrix formalism and illustrate the application of this method as a probe of the dissipative properties of dense media. In particular, we propose a means of disentangling rotational population relaxation from decoherence effects via strong laser alignment. We illustrate also the possibility of suppressing rotational relaxation to prolong the alignment lifetime through choice of the field parameters. Implications to several disciplines and a number of potential applications are proposed.