Figure 2. Suppression of photoisomerization under strong coupling for a single molecule.

(a–c) Ground (blue) and excited (purple-orange colour scale) potential energy surfaces of the model molecule coupled to a quantized light mode (ω_c=2.65 eV), with the light-matter coupling strength Ω_R increasing from a–c. The continuous colour scale encodes the nature of the hybridized excited PES. (d–f) Time propagation of the nuclear wavepacket after sudden excitation to the lowest excited PES (=lower polariton for Ω_R>0), shown separately for the parts in the lower polariton surface (orange) and the ground state surface (blue) reached through the nonadiabatic transition at q=0. Contributions in the upper polariton surface are negligible and not shown.