Showing papers by "N. L. Manakov published in 2014"

Nonlinear Dichroism in Back-to-Back Double Ionization of He by an Intense Elliptically Polarized Few-Cycle Extreme Ultraviolet Pulse.

Abstract: Control of double ionization of He by means of the polarization and carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of an intense, few-cycle extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulse is demonstrated numerically by solving the six-dimensional two-electron, time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation for He interacting with an elliptically polarized XUV pulse. Guided by perturbation theory (PT), we predict the existence of a nonlinear dichroic effect ($\ensuremath{\propto}{I}^{3/2}$) that is sensitive to the CEP, ellipticity, peak intensity $I$, and temporal duration of the pulse. This dichroic effect (i.e., the difference of the two-electron angular distributions for opposite helicities of the ionizing XUV pulse) originates from interference of first- and second-order PT amplitudes, allowing one to probe and control $S$- and $D$-wave channels of the two-electron continuum. We show that the back-to-back in-plane geometry with unequal energy sharing is an ideal one for observing this dichroic effect that occurs only for an elliptically polarized, few-cycle attosecond pulse.

Resonant electron-atom bremsstrahlung in an intense laser field

Abstract: We analyze a resonant mechanism for spontaneous laser-assisted electron bremsstrahlung (BrS) involving the resonant transition (via either laser-assisted electron-ion recombination or electron-atom attachment) into a laser-dressed intermediate quasibound state (corresponding, respectively, to either a field-free neutral atom or a negative-ion bound state) accompanied by ionization or detachment of this state by the laser field. This mechanism leads to resonant enhancement (by orders of magnitude) of the BrS spectral density for emitted photon energies corresponding to those for laser-assisted recombination or attachment. We present an accurate parametrization of the resonant BrS amplitude in terms of the amplitudes for nonresonant BrS, for recombination or attachment to the intermediate state, and for ionization or detachment of this state. The high accuracy of our general analytic parametrization of the resonant BrS cross section is shown by comparison with exact numerical results for laser-assisted BrS spectra obtained within time-dependent effective range theory. Numerical estimates of resonant BrS in electron scattering from a Coulomb potential are also presented.

Analytic model for the description of above-threshold ionization by an intense short laser pulse

Abstract: We present an analytic model for the description of above-threshold ionization (ATI) of an atom by an intense, linearly polarized short laser pulse. Our treatment is based upon a description of ATI by an infinitely long train of short laser pulses whereupon we take the limit that the time interval between pulses becomes infinite. In the quasiclassical approximation, we provide detailed quantum-mechanical derivations, within the time-dependent effective range (TDER) model, of the closed-form formulas for the differential probability $\mathcal{P}(\mathbf{p})$ of ATI by an intense, short laser pulse that were presented briefly by Frolov et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 213002 (2012)] and that were used to describe key features of the high-energy part of ATI spectra for H and He atoms in an intense, few-cycle laser pulse, using a phenomenological generalization of the physically transparent TDER results to the case of real atoms. Moreover, we extend these results here to the case of an electron bound initially in a $p$ state; we also take into account multiple-return electron trajectories. The ATI amplitude in our approach is given by a coherent sum of partial amplitudes describing ionization by neighboring optical cycles near the peak of the intensity envelope of a short laser pulse. These results provide an analytical explanation of key features in short-pulse ATI spectra, such as the left-right asymmetry in the ionized electron angular distribution, the multiplateau structures, and both large-scale and fine-scale oscillation patterns resulting from quantum interferences of electron trajectories. Our results show that the shape of the ATI spectrum in the middle part of the ATI plateau is sensitive to the spatial symmetry of the initial bound state of the active electron. This sensitivity originates from the contributions of multiple-return electron trajectories. Our analytic results are shown to be in good agreement with results of numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation for He and Ar atoms. Comparison of our results with those of quantitative rescattering theory is also discussed.