Salecker-Wigner-Peres quantum clock applied to strong-field tunnel ionization

TL;DR

This paper uses the Salecker-Wigner-Peres quantum-clock approach to measure the non-zero tunneling time of an electron during strong-field ionization, comparing it with other methods and analyzing the distribution of tunneling times.

Contribution

It applies the quantum-clock approach to strong-field tunnel ionization and compares the results with the virtual-detector method, revealing insights into tunneling time distributions.

Findings

Tunneling time is non-zero and larger than the Keldysh time.

Quantum-clock and virtual-detector methods yield similar tunneling times.

Asymmetric tunneling time distribution causes discrepancy between mean and most probable times.

Abstract

The Salecker-Wigner-Peres quantum-clock approach is applied in order to determine the tunneling time of an electron in strong-field tunnel ionization via a time-dependent electric field. Our results show that the ionization of the electron takes a nonvanishing period of time. This tunneling time is of the order of the Keldysh time but strictly larger than the Keldysh time. Comparing the quantum-clock tunneling time to the mean tunneling time as obtained by the virtual-detector approach, one finds that these two complementary methods give very similar results. Due to the asymmetric distribution of the tunneling time, there is a nonnegligible discrepancy between the mean tunneling time and the most probable tunneling time.