A new version of the R-matrix Floquet theory for laser-assisted electron-atom scattering is presented. The theory is non-perturbative and applicable to a non-relativistic many-electron atom or ion in a homogeneous linearly polarized field. It is based on the use of channel functions built from field-dressed target states, which greatly simplifies the general formalism.
We present a two-timescale Floquet method that allows one to apply the Kramers-Henneberger approach to short pulses and arbitrary laser frequencies. An efficient numerical procedure to propagate the Floquet Hamiltonian is provided that relies on the Toeplitz matrix formalism and Fast Fourier Transformations. It enables efficient time propagation with large Floquet expansions, while still taking advantage of the cycle-averaged Kramers-Henneberger basis. Three illustrative cases of ionization with different photon energies are analyzed, where the envelope of a short and intense pulse is crucial …
We develop an adiabatic Floquet picture in the length gauge to describe the dynamics of a hydrogen atom in an intense laser field. In this picture, we discuss the roles played by frequency and intensity in terms of adiabatic potentials and the couplings between them, which gives a physical and intuitive picture for quantum systems exposed to a laser field. For simplicity, analyze hydrogen and give the adiabatic potential curves as well as some physical quantities that can be readily calculated for the ground state. Both linearly and circularly polarized laser fields are discussed.
We present Floquet calculations of high harmonic generation (HHG) for the lowest two electronic states of the $\mbox{H}_2^+$ ion by strong continuous-wave laser fields. We solve the non-Hermitian matrix problem to get accurate solutions to the periodic time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) by applying a pseudospectral representation combined with a complex absorbing potential method. This represents an alternative approach to direct TDSE solutions to obtain the harmonic spectra for the ion. We compare our HHG rates for the lower and upper states of $\mbox{H}^{+}_{2}$, which correspond to …
For a simple illustrative model Hamiltonian for Xenon in low frequency linearly polarized laser field we obtain a remarkable agreement between the zero-order energy as well as amplitude and phase of the zero-order Floquet states and the exact eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the Floquet operator. Here we use as a zero-order Hamiltonian the adiabatic Hamiltonian where time is used as an instantaneous parameter. Moreover, for a variety of low laser frequencies, $ω$, the deviation of the zero-order solutions from the exact quasi-energy (QE) Floquet solutions approaches zero at the time the oscil…
We investigate the laser-assisted single XUV photon double ionization of ground state helium. By solving full six-dimensional time-dependent schr{ö}dinger equation, we study the correlation and angular distribution. The discussion in joint energy and angular distributions reveals the competition in odd and even parity double ionization processes in the presence of weak laser field. The emission angle between two photoelectrons can be adjusted by the laser parameters. We depicts how the laser field enhance and/or enable the back-to-back and side-by-side emission of double ionization.
New insights into our understanding of the semirelativistic excitation of atomic hydrogen by electronic impact have been made possible by combining the use of polarized electron beams and intense laser field. The paper reviews relativistic theoretical treatment in laser-assisted electron scattering with particular emphasis upon spin effects. Different spin configurations for inelastic electron-atom collisions is also discussed. The role of laser field in such collision is of major importance and reveals new information on the dynamics of the collision process. The examined modern theoretical i…
We present a theoretical analysis of high-order harmonic generation from ion-atom collisions in the presence of linearly polarized intense laser pulses. Photons with frequencies significantly higher than in standard atomic high-harmonic generation are emitted. These harmonics are due to two different mechanisms: (i) collisional electron capture and subsequent laser-driven transfer of an electron between projectile and target atom; (ii) reflection of a laser-driven electron from the projectile leading to recombination at the parent atom.
We introduce a new method that allows one to obtain an analytical cross section for the laser-assisted electron-ion collision in a closed form. As an example we perform a calculation for the hydrogen laser-assisted recombination. The $S$-matrix element for the process is constructed from an exact electron Coulomb-Volkov wave function and an approximate laser modified hydrogen state. An explicit expression for the field-enhancement coefficient of the process is expressed in terms of the dimensionless parameter $κ= |{eε_{0}}/{qω_{0}}|^{2}$, where $e$ and $q$ are the electron charge and momentum …
Laser assisted Coulomb scattering by relativistic electron and heavy electron (muon) is studied by using Salamin waves (Salamin 1993) in the Weak Field Approximation (WFA). Both electron and muon are described by the Dirac equation, with the anomalous magnetic moment effects fully included. The generalization of this paper to heavy electron (muon) gives interesting insights as to how the mass affects the magnitude of the differential cross sections. No significant difference in the muon's DCS with and without AMM effects was detected.
The Thomas--Reiche--Kuhn sum rule is used to form an effective potential that is added to the time-dependent configuration interaction singles (TDCIS) equations of motion in velocity gauge. The purpose of the effective potential is to include virtual coupling from singles to doubles, which is required for size-consistent velocity gauge TDCIS results. The proposed method is compared to length gauge TDCIS results for laser-assisted photoionization. Finally, a novel dynamical interference effect controlled by two-color fields is predicted for atomic targets.
Two-photon free-free transitions in elastic laser-assisted electron-hydrogen collisions are studied in the domain of high scattering energies and low or moderate field intensities, in the third order of perturbation theory, taking into account all the involved Feynman diagrams. Based on the analytical expressions of the transition amplitudes, the differential cross sections for two-photon absorption/emission are computed at impact energy $E_i=100$ eV. The effect of field polarizations on the angular distribution and on the frequency dependence of the differential cross section is analyzed.
The magnetic-field effect of the laser pulse is investigated in laser-assisted XUV ionization. By numerically solving the three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation, we find that the photoelectron momentum distribution is distorted by the magnetic-field effect of the IR streaking field. It results in a transverse-momentum- and time-delay-dependent longitudinal photoelectron momentum shift, which is further analytically confirmed by employing the nondipole corrected strong field approximation. We also demonstrate that the magnetic field does not affect the time shift retrieved from t…
The dynamics of the electron impact multiphoton ionization of a hydrogen atom in the presence of an intense laser field has been studied theoretically, with a view to comparing (qualitatively) the results with the recent kinematically complete experiments of Horr et al [ Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 94, 153201, (2005) ] for the He target. Significant laser modifications are noted in the present doubly (DDCS) and the fully differential cross sections (TDCS). For most of the explored kinematics (chosen in accordance with the experiment), the present binary peak intensity of the laser-assisted TDCS is …
Magnetic field sensing provides crucial insights into various geophysical phenomena such as atmospheric currents, crustal magnetism, and oceanic circulation. In this paper, a method for remote detection of magnetic fields using mesospheric sodium with an assisting satellite is proposed. Sodium atoms in the mesosphere are optically pumped with a ground-based laser beam. A satellite-borne detector is used to measure magneto-optical rotation of the polarization of a probe laser beam by the sodium atoms. This sensitive magnetometry method benefits from direct detection of laser photons and complem…
We present a theoretical study on the recombination of a free electron into the ground state of a hydrogen-like ion in the presence of an external laser field. Emphasis is placed on the effects caused by the laser dressing of the residual ionic bound state. To investigate how this dressing affects the total and angle-differential cross section of laser assisted radiative recombination (LARR) we apply first-order perturbation theory and the separable Coulomb-Volkov-continuum ansatz. Using this approach detailed calculations were performed for low-$Z$ hydrogen like ions and laser intensities in …
The interplay of x-ray ionization and atomic and nuclear degrees of freedom is investigated theoretically in the process of laser-assisted nuclear excitation by electron capture. In the resonant process of nuclear excitation by electron capture, an incident electron recombines into a vacancy in the atomic shell with simultaneous nuclear excitation. Here we investigate the specific scenario in which the free electron and the required atomic shell hole are generated by an x-ray free electron laser pulse. We develop a theoretical description based on the Feshbach projection operator formalism and…
Within the framework of the coplanar binary geometry where it is justified to use plane wave solutions for the study of the $(e,2e)$ reaction and in the presence of a circularly polarized laser field, we introduce as a first step the DVRPWBA1 (Dirac-Volkov Plane Wave Born Approximation1) where we take into account only the relativistic dressing of the incident and scattered electrons. Then, we introduce the DVRPWBA2 (Dirac-Volkov Plane Wave Born Approximation2) where we take totally into account the relativistic dressing of the incident, scattered and ejected electrons. We then compare the cor…
We propose a method to obtain Floquet states---also known as light-induced states---and their quasi-energies from real-time wavefunctions without solving the Floquet equation. This is useful for the analysis of various phenomena in time-dependent quantum dynamics if the Hamiltonian is not strictly periodic, as in short laser pulses, for instance. There, the population of the Floquet states depends on the pulse form and is automatically contained in the real-time wavefunction but not in the standard Floquet approach. Several examples in the area of intense laser-atom interaction are exemplarily…
We consider a quantum state interacting with a short intense linearly polarized laser pulse. Using the two-dimensional time representation and Floquet picture we establish a straightforward connection between the laser carrier-envelope phase (CEP) and the wave function. This connection is revealed as a unitary transformation in the space of Floquet components. It allows any CEP effect to be interpreted as an interference between the components and to put limits on using the CEP in coherent control. A 2-level system is used to illustrate the theory. On this example we demonstrate strong intensi…
With a specific choice of laser parameters resulting into a so-called exceptional point in the wavelength-intensity plane, it is possible to produce the coalescence of two Floquet resonances describing the photodissociation of the molecule Na$_2$, which is one of the candidates for molecular cooling. Appropriately tuning laser parameters, following a contour around the exceptional point, the resonances exchange their labels. This represents a laser control of the vibrational transfer from one field-free state to another, through an adiabatic transport involving these resonances. The proportion…
We consider inelastic collisions between relativistic electrons and atomic targets assisted by a low-frequency laser field in the case when this field is still much weaker than the typical internal fields in the target. Concentrating on target transitions we show that they can be substantially affected by the presence of the laser field. This may occur either via strong modifications in the motion of the relativistic electrons caused by the electron-laser interaction or via the Compton effect when the incident electrons convert laser photon(s) into photons with frequencies equal to target tran…
Nonsequential double ionization (NSDI) of helium in an intense few-cycle laser pulse is investigated by applying the three-dimensional semi-classical re-scattering method. It is found that the momentum distribution of He$^{2+}$ shows a single-double-single peak structure as the pulse intensity increases. According to the different mechanisms dominating the NSDI process, the laser intensity can be classified into three regimes where the momentum distribution of He$^{2+}$ exhibits different characteristics. In the relatively high intensity regime, an NSDI mechanism named the "laser-assisted coll…
Proton emission from nuclei via the nuclear photoeffect in the combined electromagnetic fields of a gamma-ray photon and an intense laser wave is studied. An S-matrix approach to the process is developed by utilizing methods known from the theory of nonperturbative laser-atom interactions. As a specific example, photo-proton ejection from halo nuclei is considered. We show that, due to the presence of the laser field, rich sideband structures arise in the photo-proton energy spectra. Their dependence on the parameters and relative orientation of the photon fields is discussed.
A time-resolved spectroscopic protocol exploiting terahertz-assisted photoionization is proposed to reconstruct transient density matrix. Population and coherence elements are effectively mapped onto spectrally separated peaks in photoionization spectra. The beatings of coherence dynamics can be temporally resolved beyond the pulse duration, and the relative phase between involved states is directly readable from the oscillatory spectral distribution. As demonstrated by a photo-excited multilevel open quantum system, the method shows potential applications for sub-femtosecond time-resolved mea…
We experimentally implement the Harper Hamiltonian for neutral particles in optical lattices using laser-assisted tunneling and a potential energy gradient provided by gravity or magnetic field gradients. This Hamiltonian describes the motion of charged particles in strong magnetic fields. Laser-assisted tunneling processes are characterized by studying the expansion of the atoms in the lattice. The band structure of this Hamiltonian should display Hofstadter's butterfly. For fermions, this scheme should realize the quantum Hall effect and chiral edge states.
Rescattering effects in nonresonant spontaneous laser-assisted electron-atom bremsstrahlung (LABrS) are analyzed within the framework of time-dependent effective-range (TDER) theory. It is shown that high energy LABrS spectra exhibit rescattering plateau structures that are similar to those that are well-known in strong field laser-induced processes as well as those that have been predicted theoretically in laser-assisted collision processes. In the limit of a low-frequency laser field, an analytic description of LABrS is obtained from a rigorous quantum analysis of the exact TDER results for …
We discuss the coupling of the motion of two ion species in separate Penning traps via a common tank circuit. The enhancement of the coupling assisted by the tank circuit is demonstrated by an avoided crossing behavior measurement of the motional modes of two coupled ions. We propose an intermittent laser cooling method for sympathetic cooling and provide a theoretical description. The technique enables tuning of the coupling strength between two ion species in separate traps and thus allows for efficient sympathetic cooling of an arbitrary type of single ion for high-precision Penning-trap ex…
Laser-induced nuclear recollisions following $α$ decay in the presence of an intense laser field are investigated theoretically. We show that while an intense optical laser does not influence notably the tunneling rate in $α$ decay, it can completely change the $α$ particle spectrum. For intensities of $10^{22}-10^{23}$ W/cm$^{2}$, the field is strong enough to induce recollisions between the emitted $α$ particle and the daughter nucleus. The energy gained by the $α$ particle in the field can reach 20 MeV and suffice to trigger several types of nuclear reactions on a femtosecond time scale. Si…
The Compton scattering of X-ray photons, assisted by a short intense optical laser pulse, is discussed. The differential scattering cross section reveals the interesting feature that the main Klein-Nishina line is accompanied by a series of side-lines forming a broad plateau where up to ${\cal O} (10^3)$ laser photons participate simultaneously in a single scattering event. An analytic formula for the width of the plateau is given. Due to the non-linear mixing of X-ray and laser photons a frequency dependent rotation of the polarization of the final state X-ray photons relative to the scatteri…