The half Kapitza-Dirac effect of H + 2 molecule in an intense standing-wave laser field is studied with a focus on the influence of the molecular orbital symmetry and the molecular alignment on the photoelectron angular distributions (PADs). In standing-wave laser fields, the PADs split along the scattering angle due to the momentum change of electron with photons when it escapes from the laser fields. The structures and the symmetry of PADs are severely affected by the molecular orbital

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... y and the molecular alignment. For H + 2 molecule in ground state (σ g ), the PADs are severely changed by the molecular alignment only when the photoelectron kinetic energy is sufficiently high. For H + 2 molecule in the first excited state (σ μ ), the molecular alignment distinctively changes the PADs, irrelevant to the kinetic energy of photoelectrons. When the molecules are aligned either parallel with or perpendicular to the laser polarization, the PADs are symmetric about an axis. In other cases, the PADs do not show any symmetry. These results indicate that the molecular alignment can be used to control the splitting in the half Kapitza-Dirac effect.