Optical-field ionization by femtosecond laser pulse of time-dependent polarization

Abstract

Recently it has become possible to generate and control a time dependent polarization pulse in which the polarization changes as a function of time within a single femtosecond pulse. In the present work, we develop a numerical code to solve time-dependent Schrodinger equation for a hydrogen atom in time dependent polarization pulse and we study the optical-field ionization (OFI) of a hydrogen atom in the pulse whose plane of polarization rotates. We find that the OFI rate depends on the rotation frequency of the plane of polarization, even though the temporal profile of field strength remains unchanged.