Attosecond transient absorption of a bound wave packet coupled to a smooth continuum

We investigate the possibility to use transient absorption of a coherent bound electron wave packet in hydrogen as an attosecond pulse characterization technique. In recent work we have shown that photoionization of such a coherent bound electron wave packet opens up for pulse characterization with unprecedented temporal accuracy --- independent of the atomic structure --- with maximal photoemission at all kinetic energies given a wave packet with zero relative phase [Pabst and Dahlstr\"om, Phys. Rev. A, 94, 13411 (2016)]. Here, we perform numerical propagation of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation and analytical calculations based on perturbation theory to show that the energy-resolved maximal absorption of photons from the attosecond pulse does not uniquely occur at zero relative phase of the initial wave packet. Instead, maximal absorption occurs at different relative wave packet phases, distributed as a non-monotonous function with a smooth $-\pi/2$ shift across the central photon energy (given a Fourier-limited Gaussian pulse). Similar results are found also in helium. Our finding is surprising because it implies that the energy-resolved photoelectrons are not mapped one-to-one with the energy-resolved absorbed photons of the attosecond pulse.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figues, submitted as part of a Special Issue on Emerging Attosecond Technologies in Journal of Optic

Effects of screened Coulomb impurities on autoionizing two-electron resonances in spherical quantum dots

In a recent paper (Phys. Rev. B {\bf 78}, 075316 (2008)), Sajeev and Moiseyev demonstrated that the bound-to-resonant transitions and lifetimes of autoionizing states in spherical quantum dots can be controlled by varying the confinment strength. In the present paper, we report that such control can in some cases be compromised by the presence of Coulomb impurities. It is demonstrated that a screened Coulomb impurity placed in the vicinity of the dot center can lead to bound-to-resonant transitions and to avoided crossings-like behavior when the screening of the impurity charge is varied. It is argued that these properties also can have impact on electron transport through quantum dot arrays

A Schr\"{o}dinger equation for relativistic laser-matter interactions

A semi-relativistic formulation of light-matter interaction is derived using the so called propagation gauge and the relativistic mass shift. We show that relativistic effects induced by a super-intense laser field can, to a surprisingly large extent, be accounted for by the Schr{\"o}dinger equation, provided that we replace the rest mass in the propagation gauge Hamiltonian by the corresponding time-dependent field-dressed mass. The validity of the semi-relativistic approach is tested numerically on a hydrogen atom exposed to an intense XUV laser pulse strong enough to accelerate the electron towards relativistic velocities. It is found that while the results obtained from the ordinary (non-relativistic) Schr{\"o}dinger equation generally differ from those of the Dirac equation, merely demonstrating that relativistic effects are significant, the semi-relativistic formulation provides results in quantitative agreement with a fully relativistic treatment

Alternative gauge for the description of the light-matter interaction in a relativistic framework

We present a generalized velocity gauge form of the relativistic laser-matter interaction. In comparison with the (equivalent) regular minimal coupling description, this new form of the light-matter interaction results in superior convergence properties for the numerical solution of the time-dependent Dirac equation. This applies both to the numerical treatment and, more importantly, to the multipole expansion of the laser field. The advantages of the alternative gauge is demonstrated in hydrogen by studies of the dynamics following the impact of superintense laser pulses of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths and sub-femtosecond duration

Investigation of the ionization of neon by an attosecond XUV pulse with the time-dependent Schrödinger equation

We investigate theoretically the single ionization of neon by an attosecond XUV pulse, aiming at a better understanding of the outgoing electron wave-packet in the early stages of its detachment. To do so, we integrate the one-electron time-dependent Schrödinger equation numerically. The non-local interaction with the spectator electrons in the time-dependent hamiltonian is accounted for with a configuration-averaged effective Hartree-Fock potentia

Wave functions associated with time-dependent, complex-scaled Hamiltonians evaluated on a complex time grid

We solve the time-dependent Schrödinger equation with themethod of uniform complex scaling and investigate the possibility to evaluate the solution on a complex time grid. With this approach it is possible to calculate properties that relate directly to the continuum part of the complex scaledwave function, such as the photoelectron spectrum after photoabsorption