Validity of Factorization of the High-Energy Photoelectron Yield in Above-Threshold Ionization of an Atom by a Short Laser Pulse

M. V. Frolov, D. V. Knyazeva, N. L. Manakov, A. M. Popov, O. V. Tikhonova, E. A. Volkova, Ming-Hui Xu, Liang-You Peng, Liang-Wen Pi, and Anthony F. Starace

Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 213002 – Published 22 May 2012

Abstract

An analytic description for the yield, $P (p)$ , of high-energy electrons ionized from an atom by a short (few-cycle) laser pulse is obtained quantum mechanically. Factorization of $P (p)$ in terms of an electron wave packet and the cross section for elastic electron scattering (EES) is shown to occur only for an ultrashort pulse, while in general $P (p)$ involves interference of EES amplitudes with laser-field-dependent momenta. The analytic predictions agree well with accurate numerical results.

Received 30 June 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.213002

Authors & Affiliations

M. V. Frolov^1,2, D. V. Knyazeva¹, N. L. Manakov^1,*, A. M. Popov^3,†, O. V. Tikhonova³, E. A. Volkova³, Ming-Hui Xu⁴, Liang-You Peng^4,2,‡, Liang-Wen Pi^5,2, and Anthony F. Starace^5,2,§

¹Department of Physics, Voronezh State University, Voronezh 394006, Russia
²Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics China, CAS, Beijing 100190, China
³D. V. Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow 199991, Russia
⁴State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Department of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
⁵Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0299, USA