Classical simulations including electron correlations for sequential double ionization

TL;DR

This study uses a classical ensemble model including electron correlations to accurately simulate and explain sequential double ionization of argon atoms under strong laser fields, matching experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a fully classical correlated model that reproduces experimental ionization times and momentum distributions, advancing classical approaches in strong-field ionization studies.

Findings

Successfully reproduces experimental ion momentum distributions.

Accurately predicts ionization time of second electrons.

Supports classical models for complex multi-electron dynamics.

Abstract

With a classical ensemble model that including electron correlations during the whole ionization process, we investigated strong-field sequential double ionization of Ar by elliptically polarized pulses at the quantitative level. The experimentally observed intensity-dependent three-band or four-band structures in the ion momentum distributions are well reproduced with this classical model. More importantly, the experimentally measured ionization time of the second electrons [A. N. Pfeiffer et al., Nature Phys. 7, 428 (2011)], which can not be predicted by the standard independent-electron model, is quantitatively reproduced by this fully classical correlated model. The success of our work encourages classical description and interpretation of the complex multi-electron effects in strong field ionization where nonperturbative quantum approaches are currently not feasible.