Interpretation of the time delay in the ionization of Coulomb and two-center systems

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the measurement and interpretation of time delays in electron ionization from Coulomb and two-center systems, using a virtual detector approach and numerical solutions to understand dependencies and singularities.

Contribution

It introduces a virtual detector method for describing attosecond streaking time delays and derives a simple Coulomb-laser coupling formula validated by numerical solutions.

Findings

Derived a formula for Coulomb-laser coupling in time delay measurements.

Studied the dependence of time delay on energy, angular momentum, and quantum numbers.

Proposed a physical interpretation of singularities in the time delay expression.

Abstract

We consider the time delay of electron detachment from a Coulomb center and two-center systems in the process of ionization. It is shown that the attosecond streaking, most usual method of time delay measure, can be formally described by placing a virtual detector of the arrival time delay at a certain distance from the center of the system. This approach allows derivation of a simple formula for Coulomb-laser coupling that perfectly agrees with the results of numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation. The dependence of the time delay upon the energy, the angular momentum projection, and the azimuthal quantum number is studied for the ionization of molecular hydrogen ion. Finally, we propose a physical interpretation of singularities, arising when the formal expression for the time delay is applied to the ionization of molecular hydrogen.