Wave-function splitting technique for calculating above-threshold ionization electron spectra

✍ Scribed by S. Chelkowski; A. D. Bandrauk

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 336 KB
• Volume: 60
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-7608
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-461x(1996)60:7<1685::aid-qua51>3.0.co;2-x

✦ Synopsis

In intense laser fields, atoms and molecules can absorb many more photons than required for ionization. This phenomenon is called above-threshold ionization (ATI) and it shows up in kinetic energy spectra of ionized electrons. The presence of very high energy photoelectrons necessitates the use of extremely large grids in numerical simulations based on the full time-dependent Schrodinger equation. We show that by using a wave function splitting scheme one can circumvent the problem of large grids and thus obtain accurate multiphoton photoelectron spectra. This scheme will be very useful in studies of AT1 spectra generated by molecules in intense laser fields. We illustrate this method for a one-dimensional model of the H atom in intense laser fields.