Quantum state reconstruction of a rotational wave packet created by a nonresonant intense femtosecond laser field.

We have experimentally determined the amplitudes and phases of a rotational wave packet in an adiabatically cooled benzene molecule, created by a nonresonant intense femtosecond laser field. In this wave-packet reconstruction, the initial wave packet is further interfered by a replica of the first laser pulse, and the resultant modulation in population is observed in a state-resolved manner. Though several states with different nuclear-spin modifications are populated in the initial condition, a single wave packet created from one of them (with J=0) is specifically reconstructed. Phase shifts characteristic of stepwise Raman excitation beyond the perturbative regime are experimentally identified.