Slow electrons generated by intense high-frequency laser pulses

A very slow electron is shown to emerge when an intense high-frequency laser pulse is applied to a hydrogen negative ion. This counterintuitive effect cannot be accounted for by multiphoton or tunneling ionization mechanisms. We explore the effect and show that in the high-frequency regime the atomi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 103; no. 15; p. 153003
Main Authors Toyota, Koudai, Tolstikhin, Oleg I, Morishita, Toru, Watanabe, Shinichi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 09.10.2009
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Summary:A very slow electron is shown to emerge when an intense high-frequency laser pulse is applied to a hydrogen negative ion. This counterintuitive effect cannot be accounted for by multiphoton or tunneling ionization mechanisms. We explore the effect and show that in the high-frequency regime the atomic electron is promoted to the continuum via a nonadiabatic transition caused by slow deformation of the dressed potential that follows a variation of the envelope of the laser pulse. This is a general mechanism, and a slow electron peak should always appear in the photoelectron spectrum when an atom is irradiated by a high-frequency pulse of finite length.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.103.153003