Time-delayed nonsequential double ionization with few-cycle laser pulses: importance of the carrier-envelope phase

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the carrier-envelope phase in few-cycle laser pulses influences nonsequential double ionization, revealing that phase control can manipulate correlated electron emission for potential attosecond applications.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed quantum orbit analysis showing how the carrier-envelope phase affects electron-momentum distributions in nonsequential double ionization.

Findings

Electron-momentum distributions vary significantly with phase.

Quantum orbit analysis links distributions to dominant rescattering orbits.

Phase variation enables control over correlated electron emission.

Abstract

We perform theoretical investigations of laser-induced nonsequential double ionization with few cycle pulses, with particular emphasis on the dependence of the electron-momentum distributions on the carrier-envelope phase. We focus on the recollision-excitation with subsequent tunneling ionization (RESI) pathway, in which a released electron, upon return to its parent ion, gives part of its kinetic energy to promote a second electron to an excited state. At a subsequent time, the second electron is freed through tunneling ionization. We show that the RESI electron-momentum distributions vary dramatically with regard to the carrier-envelope phase. By performing a detailed analysis of the dynamics of the two active electrons in terms of quantum orbits, we relate the shapes and the momentum regions populated by such distributions to the dominant set of orbits along which rescattering of the first electron and ionization of the second electron occurs. These orbits can be manipulated by varying the carrier-envelope phase. This opens a wide range of possibilities for controlling correlated attosecond electron emission by an adequate pulse choice.