The effects of intense electromagnetic fields on the decay of quasistationary
states are investigated theoretically. We focus on the parameter regime of
strong laser fields and nonlinear effects where an essentially nonperturbative
description is required. Our approach is based on the imaginary time method
previously introduced in the theory of strong-field ionization. Spectra and
total decay rates are presented for a test case and the results are compared
with exact numerical calculations. The potential of this method is confirmed by
good quantitative agreement with the numerical results.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure
