where R𝑗 is the reaction coordinate for the 𝑗 th molecule, 𝑉 ( R𝑗 ) is the ground state potential for each reaction molecule (a double well potential for this paper as is typical for VSC simulations ), and 𝜇( R𝑗 ) is the dipole associated with the ground electronic state (electronic permanent dipole). In particular, the angle 𝜙 𝑗 is the angle between μ𝑗 (the dipole operator of the 𝑗 th molecule) and the field polarization direction ê (we only consider transverse electric (TE) polarization) such that μ𝑗 • ê = 𝜇( R𝑗 ) cos 𝜙 𝑗 . A schematic illustration is provided in the top panel of Fig. .