The role of light ellipticity in ionization of atoms by intense few-cycles laser pulses

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the ellipticity of intense few-cycle laser pulses affects the ionization dynamics of argon and hydrogen atoms, using numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation to analyze electron behavior.

Contribution

It provides a detailed theoretical analysis of atomic ionization under elliptically polarized laser pulses, highlighting similarities between different atomic responses and elucidating electron rescattering processes.

Findings

Electron momentum distributions vary with light ellipticity.

Ionization spectra show characteristic changes as ellipticity increases.

Argon and hydrogen exhibit similar ionization responses.

Abstract

We provide theoretical investigations of the response of the Ar and H atoms to an intense elliptically polarized few-cycle laser pulse, as a function of light ellipticity. The time-dependent Schr{\"o}dinger equation describing the least-bound electron is solved numerically, and differential quantities such as the momentum distribution, the electron density in the continuum, and the above-threshold ionization spectra are computed. These quantities provide insight into the ionization dynamics and the electron rescattering process as a function of light ellipticity, and reveal great similarities between the response of Ar and H to the applied external field.