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Journal of Physics Conference Series

Can we break the symmetry along the polarization axis in photoionization?

Y-C Cheng, Sara Mikaelsson, Saikat Nandi, Lisa Rämisch, Chen Guo, Anne Harth, Jan Vogelsang, Miguel Miranda, Cord L. Arnold, Anne L’Huillier, Mathieu Gisselbrecht

Published Jan 1, 2020• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Synopsis Photoionization is a fundamental process in which an electron is emitted from an atom. The emission is traditionally considered to be symmetric with respect to the polarization axis, unless it is temporally confined to a period shorter than an optical cycle time. We demonstrate that this symmetry can still be broken by combining a train of a few attosecond pulses and a dressing laser field. The light fields act as temporal slits and phase modulator that releases electron wavepackets. The resulting photoelectron spectra differ for electrons emitted in opposite direction along the polarization.

DOI
10.1088/1742-6596/1412/7/072034

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Synopsis Photoionization is a fundamental process in which an electron is emitted from an atom. The emission is traditionally considered to be symmetric with respect to the polarization axis, unless it is temporally confined to a period shorter than an optical cycle time. We demonstrate that this symmetry can still be broken by combining a train of a few attosecond pulses and a dressing laser field. The light fields act as temporal slits and phase modulator that releases electron wavepackets. The resulting photoelectron spectra differ for electrons emitted in opposite direction along the polarization.
When small quantum systems, atoms or molecules, absorb a high-energy photon, electrons are emitted with a well-defined energy and a highly symmetric angular distribution, ruled by energy quantization and parity conservation. These rules are based on approximations and symmetries which may break down when atoms are exposed to ultrashort and intense optical pulses. This raises the question of their universality for the simplest case of the photoelectric effect. Here we investigate photoionization of helium by a sequence of attosecond pulses in the presence of a weak infrared laser field. We continuously control the energy of the photoelectrons and introduce an asymmetry in their emission direction, at variance with the idealized rules mentioned above. This control, made possible by the extreme temporal confinement of the light-matter interaction, opens a road in attosecond science, namely, the manipulation of ultrafast processes with a tailored sequence of attosecond pulses.
When an atom or molecule absorbs a high-energy photon, an electron is emitted with a well-defined energy and a highly-symmetric angular distribution, ruled by energy quantization and parity conservation. These rules seemingly break down when small quantum systems are exposed to short and intense light pulses, which raise the question of their universality for the simplest case of the photoelectric effect. Here we investigate the photoionization of helium by a sequence of attosecond pulses in the presence of a weak infrared dressing field. We continuously control the energy and introduce an asymmetry in the emission direction of the photoelectrons, thus contradicting well established quantum-mechanical predictions. This control is possible due to an extreme temporal confinement of the light-matter interaction. Our work extends time-domain coherent control schemes to one of the fastest processes in nature, the photoelectric effect.
Abstract Attosecond chronoscopy is central to the understanding of ultrafast electron dynamics from gas to condensed phase with attosecond temporal resolution. It has, however, not yet been able to determine the timing of individual partial waves, and steering their contribution has been a substantial challenge. Here, we develop a polarization-skewed attosecond chronoscopy to reveal their roles from the angle-resolved photoionization phase shifts in rare gas atoms. By scanning the relative polarization angle between an extreme-ultraviolet attosecond pulse train and a phase-locked near-infrared laser field serving as a partial wave meter, we break the cylindrical symmetry and observe an emission direction dependent phase shift in the photoionized electron momenta. The experimental observations are well supported by numerical simulations using the R-matrix with time-dependence method, and by analytical analysis using the soft-photon approximation. Our symmetry-resolved, partial-wave analysis identifies the transition rate and phase shifts of each individual ionization pathway in the attosecond photoelectron emission dynamics. Our findings provide critical insights into the ubiquitous attosecond optical timer and the underlying attosecond photoionization dynamics, thereby offer new perspectives for the control, manipulation, and exploration of ultrafast electron dynamics in complex systems.
We study time delay in atomic photoionization by circularly polarized light. By considering the Li atom in an excited 2p2p2p state, we demonstrate a strong time-delay asymmetry between the photoemission of the target electrons that are co- and counter-rotating with the electromagnetic field in the polarization plane. In addition, we observe the time-delay sensitivity to the polar angle of the photoelectron emission in the polarization plane. This modulation depends on the shape and duration of the electromagnetic pulse.
Abstract We study theoretically the single ionization of noble gas atoms by the combined action of an attosecond pulse train with linear polarization and an assistant laser field with circular polarization. We employ a non-perturbative model that under certain approximations gives closed-form expressions for the angular distributions of photoelectrons. Interestingly, our model allow us to interpret these angular distributions as two-centre interferences where the orientation and the modulus of the separation vector between the virtual emitters is governed by the assistant laser field. Additionally, we show that such a configuration of light fields is similar to the polarization control technique, where both the attosecond pulse train and the assistant laser field have linear polarizations whose relative orientation may be controlled. Moreover, in order to compare our results with the available experimental data, we obtain analytical expressions for the cross sections integrated over the photoelectron emission angles. By means of these expressions, we define the ‘magic time’ as the delay for which the total cross sections for atomic targets exhibit the same functional form as the one of the monochromatic photoionization of diatomic molecular targets.