Gouy's Phase Anomaly in Electron Waves Produced by Strong-Field Ionization

TL;DR

This paper investigates Gouy's phase anomaly in electron waves from strong-field ionization, revealing its impact on interference patterns and providing a semiclassical model that aligns well with quantum solutions.

Contribution

It introduces a semiclassical model incorporating Gouy's phase anomaly and Maslov phases, improving the understanding of electron interference in strong-field ionization.

Findings

Correctly models interference fringes and high-energy yields.

Shows excellent agreement with Schrödinger equation solutions.

Provides a simple rule linking 2D and 3D models.

Abstract

Ionization of atoms by linearly polarized strong laser fields produces cylindrically symmetric photoelectron momentum distributions that exhibit modulations due to the interference of outgoing electron trajectories. For a faithful modeling, it is essential to include previously overlooked phase jumps occurring when trajectories pass through focal points. Such phase jumps are known as Gouy's phase anomaly in optics or as Maslov phases in semiclassical theory. Most importantly, because of Coulomb focusing in three dimensions, one out of two trajectories in photoelectron holography goes through a focal point as it crosses the symmetry axis in momentum space. In addition, there exist observable Maslov phases already in two dimensions. Clustering algorithms enable us to implement a semiclassical model with the correct preexponential factor that affects both the weight and the phase of each trajectory. We also derive a simple rule to relate two-dimensional and three-dimensional models. It explains the shifted interference fringes and weaker high-energy yield in three dimensions. The results are in excellent agreement with solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation.