Angular distributions of atomic photoelectrons produced in the UV and XUV regimes

TL;DR

This paper investigates the angular distributions of atomic photoelectrons generated by intense UV and XUV laser pulses, revealing complex patterns influenced by laser parameters and photon absorption.

Contribution

It presents a detailed quantum mechanical analysis of photoelectron angular distributions in atomic systems under high-frequency laser excitation, highlighting the dependence on laser parameters.

Findings

Richly structured angular distributions depend on laser frequency and intensity.

Shapes of distributions are explained through scattering mechanisms.

Distributions are sensitive even when ponderomotive potential is small.

Abstract

We present angular distributions of photoelectrons of atomic model systems excited by intense linearly polarized laser pulses in the VUV- and XUV-regime. We solve the multi-dimensional time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation for one particle on large spatial grids and investigate the direction dependence of the ionized electrons for isotropic s-states as well as p-states. Although the ponderomotive potential is small compared to the binding energy of the initially bound electron and the photon energy of the exciting laser field, richly structured photoelectron angular distributions are found which sensitively depend on the laser frequency and intensity as well as on the number of absorbed photons. The occuring shapes are explained in terms of scattering mechanisms.