Communication: Three-fold covariance imaging of laser-induced Coulomb explosions.

We apply a three-fold covariance imaging method to analyse previously acquired data [Phys. Rev. A 89 011401(R), (2014)] on the femtosecond laser-induced Coulomb explosion of spatially pre-aligned 3,5-dibromo-3′,5′-difluoro-4′-cyanobiphenyl molecules. The data were acquired using the ‘Pixel Imaging Mass Spectrometry’ (PImMS) camera. We show how three-fold covariance imaging of ionic photofragment recoil trajectories can be used to provide new information about the parent ion’s molecular structure prior to its Coulomb explosion. In particular, we show how the analysis may be used to obtain information about molecular conformation, and provides an alternative route to enantiomer determination