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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Interference suppression of photoionization of Rydberg atoms in a strong electromagnetic field

Mikhail Vladimirovich Fedorov, A. M. Movsesian

Published May 1, 1989• 110 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Photoionization of highly excited atoms by a strong microwave field is considered. Secondary coherent population of some neighboring Rydberg levels in the process of ionization is shown to be a reason for interference of transitions from these levels to the continuum. Interference is shown to be a reason for some new effects: stabilization of the atom, suppression of its ionization, appearance of a multipeak structure in the photoelectron spectrum, field-induced narrowing of its peaks, narrowing and localization of quasi-energy atomic spectrum in a strong field, etc.

DOI
10.1364/josab.6.000928

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Photoionization of highly excited atoms by a strong microwave field is considered. Secondary coherent population of some neighboring Rydberg levels in the process of ionization is shown to be a reason for interference of transitions from these levels to the continuum. Interference is shown to be a reason for some new effects: stabilization of the atom, suppression of its ionization, appearance of a multipeak structure in the photoelectron spectrum, field-induced narrowing of its peaks, narrowing and localization of quasi-energy atomic spectrum in a strong field, etc.
Excitation and photoionization of Rydberg wave packets are described. Interference of bound-free transitions from many coherently populated Rydberg levels is shown to affect the dependence of the photoionization probability on the duration of interaction. Strong-field interference effects in such a system are described also. The most important of these is the field-induced interference stabilization of Rydberg atoms in a strong ionizing field. The intensity range in which this effect can exist is determined. The results derived are used for a qualitative model describing supercontinuum emission in the process of multiphoton ionization.
Photoionization of Rydberg atoms is considered in the framework of the quasiclassical (WKB) approach. Distribution of the photoelectron density in space and time is found and analyzed. This distribution is shown to consist of two main parts: the temporary population, which exists only as long as the light field is on; and the population corresponding to irreversible ionization. The irreversible-ionization wave packets are shown to experience the effect referred to as Coulomb narrowing. An origin of this effect and the conditions of its existence are discussed. In a strong field, rather simple analytical expressions are found for the partial probabilities of above-threshold ionization and for the total probability of ionization. In contrast to many earlier works, in the present theory neither the rotating-wave nor ``pole'' approximations are used, and the results are derived for an arbitrary pulse shape. Strong-field interference stabilization of Rydberg atoms is confirmed to occur at pulse durations shorter than the Kepler period. The arising regimes of interference stabilization are analyzed in comparison with the predictions of earlier works.
Ac Stark splitting and ionization broadening of atomic Rydberg levels in a strong electromagnetic field are described. The quasi-energy atomic spectrum is shown to consist of a quasi-continuum plus two sets of narrow quasi-energy levels: weakly split and broadened almost field-free levels and strongly perturbed levels, whose width is a decreasing function of the field strength amplitude. The strong-field asymptotics of the photoelectron spectrum and of the time-dependent total photoionization probability are described. The photoelectron spectrum is shown to have a multipeak structure, and the shape of each peak is shown to be different from the Lorenz shape found earlier. This effect is explained by the contribution of the quasi-continuous quasi-energy spectrum. The same reason explains a partially nonexponential time dependence of the total photoionization probability.
The photoionization of atoms in a strong electromagnetic field leads to the effect of "above-threshold" ionization, displaying a number of peaks in the energy spectrum of the photoelectrons. In the case of a one-electron model atom in a circularly polarized field, we derive expressions that describe the position as well as the intensity of those peaks as a function of the field parameters by means of a nonperturbative method. It is immediately clear from our formulas that the lowest-energy peaks in general disappear with increasing field intensity, for Coulomb-like as well as shortrange potentials. For a zero-range potential, a numerical evaluation is easily performed, leading to results that are in every respect qualitatively similar to the experimental results obtained thus far on these kinds of processes.
Interference stabilization of Rydberg atoms in a sufficiently strong laser field is revisited. Its main features predicted theoretically and observed experimentally are described together with the newest experimental and theoretical results. The most important new results concern the found efficient population of atomic Rydberg levels in the process of multiphoton ionization and interference stabilization of population at Rydberg levels. Another important new topic is the interference stabilization at vibrational levels of dissociating molecules.