1,344 research outputs found
Radiative Corrections to Multi-Level Mollow-Type Spectra
This paper is concerned with two rather basic phenomena: the incoherent
fluorescence spectrum of an atom driven by an intense laser field and the
coupling of the atom to the (empty) modes of the radiation field. The sum of
the many-photon processes gives rise to the inelastic part of the atomic
fluorescence, which, for a two-level system, has a well-known characteristic
three-peak structure known as the Mollow spectrum. From a theoretical point of
view, the Mollow spectrum finds a natural interpretation in terms of
transitions among laser-dressed states which are the energy eigenstates of a
second-quantized two-level system strongly coupled to a driving laser field. As
recently shown, the quasi-energies of the laser-dressed states receive
radiative corrections which are nontrivially different from the results which
one would expect from an investigation of the coupling of the bare states to
the vacuum modes. In this article, we briefly review the basic elements
required for the analysis of the dynamic radiative corrections, and we
generalize the treatment of the radiative corrections to the incoherent part of
the steady-state fluorescence to a three-level system consisting of 1S, 3P and
2S states.Comment: Dedicated to Prof. H. Walther on the occasion of his 70th birthda
Comparison of classical and second quantized description of the dynamic Stark shift
We compare the derivation of the dynamic Stark shift of hydrogenic energy
levels in a classical framework with an adiabatically damped laser-atom
interaction, which is equivalent to the Gell-Mann-Low-Sucher formula, and a
treatment based on time-independent perturbation theory, with a
second-quantized laser-atom dipole interaction Hamiltonian. Our analysis
applies to a laser that excites a two-photon transition in atomic hydrogen or
in a hydrogenlike ion with low nuclear charge number. Our comparisons serve to
demonstrate why the dynamic Stark shift may be interpreted as a stimulated
radiative correction and illustrates connections between the two derivations.
The simplest of the derivations is the fully quantized approach. The classical
and the second-quantized treatment are shown to be equivalent in the limit of
large photon numbers.Comment: 5 page
Determining the carrier-envelope phase of intense few-cycle laser pulses
The electromagnetic radiation emitted by an ultra-relativistic accelerated
electron is extremely sensitive to the precise shape of the field driving the
electron. We show that the angular distribution of the photons emitted by an
electron via multiphoton Compton scattering off an intense
(I>10^{20}\;\text{W/cm^2}), few-cycle laser pulse provides a direct way of
determining the carrier-envelope phase of the driving laser field. Our
calculations take into account exactly the laser field, include relativistic
and quantum effects and are in principle applicable to presently available and
future foreseen ultra-strong laser facilities.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Nonsequential Double Recombination in Intense Laser Fields
A second plateau in the harmonic spectra of laser-driven two-electron atoms
is observed both in the numerical solution of a low-dimensional model helium
atom and using an extended strong field approximation. It is shown that the
harmonics well beyond the usual cut-off are due to the simultaneous
recombination of the two electrons, which were emitted during different,
previous half-cycles. The new cut-off is explained in terms of classical
trajectories. Classical predictions and the time-frequency analysis of the ab
initio quantum results are in excellent agreement. The mechanism corresponds to
the inverse single photon double ionization process in the presence of a (low
frequency) laser field.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, v2 with an extended strong field approximation
treatment of the process; instead, v1 describes an attosecond control scheme
to enhance the proces
Constrained probability distributions of correlation functions
Context: Two-point correlation functions are used throughout cosmology as a
measure for the statistics of random fields. When used in Bayesian parameter
estimation, their likelihood function is usually replaced by a Gaussian
approximation. However, this has been shown to be insufficient.
Aims: For the case of Gaussian random fields, we search for an exact
probability distribution of correlation functions, which could improve the
accuracy of future data analyses.
Methods: We use a fully analytic approach, first expanding the random field
in its Fourier modes, and then calculating the characteristic function.
Finally, we derive the probability distribution function using integration by
residues. We use a numerical implementation of the full analytic formula to
discuss the behaviour of this function.
Results: We derive the univariate and bivariate probability distribution
function of the correlation functions of a Gaussian random field, and outline
how higher joint distributions could be calculated. We give the results in the
form of mode expansions, but in one special case we also find a closed-form
expression. We calculate the moments of the distribution and, in the univariate
case, we discuss the Edgeworth expansion approximation. We also comment on the
difficulties in a fast and exact numerical implementation of our results, and
on possible future applications.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, updated to match version published in A&A
(slightly expanded Sects. 5.3 and 6
Polarization operator approach to electron-positron pair production in combined laser and Coulomb fields
The optical theorem is applied to the process of electron-positron pair
creation in the superposition of a nuclear Coulomb and a strong laser field. We
derive new representations for the total production rate as two-fold integrals,
both for circular laser polarization and for the general case of elliptic
polarization, which has not been treated before. Our approach allows us to
obtain by analytical means the asymptotic behaviour of the pair creation rate
for various limits of interest. In particular, we consider pair production by
two-photon absorption and show that, close to the energetic threshold of this
process, the rate obeys a power law in the laser frequency with different
exponents for linear and circular laser polarization. With the help of the
upcoming x-ray laser sources our results could be tested experimentally.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
Strong-field spatial interference in a tailored electromagnetic bath
Light scattered by a regular structure of atoms can exhibit interference
signatures, similar to the classical double-slit. These first-order
interferences, however, vanish for strong light intensities, restricting
potential applications. Here, we show how to overcome these limitations to
quantum interference in strong fields. First, we recover the first-order
interference in strong fields via a tailored electromagnetic bath with a
suitable frequency dependence. At strong driving, the optical properties for
different spectral bands are distinct, thus extending the set of observables.
We further show that for a two-photon detector as, e.g., in lithography,
increasing the field intensity leads to twice the spatial resolution of the
second-order interference pattern compared to the weak-field case.Comment: final versio
- …