We investigate numerically with Hylleraas coordinates the frequency dependence of the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) effect on bound-bound transitions of helium induced by an ultrashort laser pulse of a few cycles. We find that the CEP effect is very sensitive to the carrier frequency of the laser pulse, occurring regularly even at far-off-resonance frequencies. By analyzing a two-level model, we find that the CEP effect can be attributed to the quantum interference between neighboring multiphoton transition pathways, which is made possible by the broadened spectrum of the ultrashort laser pulse. A general picture is developed along this line to understand the sensitivity of the CEP effect to the laser's carrier frequency. Multilevel influence on the CEP effect is also discussed.
We study laser excitation processes in a double well potential. The possibility to influence localization via the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) of a laser pulse is investigated for various situations which differ in the nature of the initial state prior to the laser interactions. In more detail, the CEP-dependence of asymmetries in the case where initially the system is described by localized wave packets, eigenstates, or incoherent mixtures are calculated and interpreted within time-dependent perturbation theory. It is investigated which contributions to the asymmetry exist and how they can be modified to reveal a more or less pronounced CEP-effect.
We present a general framework for understanding carrier-envelope phase (CEP) effects in a quantum system interacting with an intense, short laser pulse. We establish a simple connection between the CEP and the wave function that can be exploited to obtain the full CEP dependence of an observable given the wave function at a single CEP. Within this framework, all CEP effects are interpreted as interference between different photon amplitudes which, in turn, can be used to put limits on the pulse lengths and intensities required to see significant CEP effects.
We study the carrier-envelope-phase (CEP) effect of a few-cycle laser pulse on bound-bound transitions in helium in the high-frequency region. Specifically, for the one-photon transition from the
11S to the
21P state, the CEP effect increases as the frequency increases; while for the two-photon transition from the
11S to the
31D state, the CEP effect shows a peak at a frequency that is almost equal to the energy difference between the
11S and
31D states. By using a four-level model, we find that the CEP effect on the
11S--
21P transition is attributed to the quantum interference between the positive-frequency and negative-frequency subpaths of the one-photon transition; whereas the CEP effect on the
11S--
31D transition is attributed to the interference between the sum-frequency and difference-frequency components of the two-photon transition. These results indicate that the CEP effect can occur not only due to the interference between neighboring multiphoton-transition paths, but also due to the interference between two components inside one multiphoton-transition path. Therefore, this work, together with our previous work for the low-frequency region [Peng et al., Phys. Rev. A 82, 053407 (2010)], may provide a complete picture of the CEP effect on bound-bound transitions in the whole range of laser frequency.