High-field quantum calculation reveals time-dependent negative Kerr contribution

Abstract

The exact quantum time-dependent optical response of hydrogen under strong field near infrared excitation is investigated and compared to the perturbative model widely used for describing the effective atomic polarization induced by intense laser fields. By solving the full 3D time-dependent Schrödinger equation, we exhibit a supplementary, quasi-instantaneous defocusing contribution missing in the weak-field model of polarization. We show that this effect is far from being negligible in particular when closures of ionization channels occur and stems from the interaction of electrons with their parent ions. It provides an interpretation to higher-order Kerr effect recently observed in various gases.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Ultrashort filaments of light in weakly-ionized, optically-transparent media
• Optical nonlinearity in Ar and N${}_2$ near the ionization threshold
• Effect of a plasma grating on pump-probe experiments near the ionization threshold in gases
• Microscopic model for the higher-order nonlinearity in optical filaments
• On negative higher-order Kerr effect and filamentation

Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Subcycle engineering of laser filamentation in gas by harmonic seeding
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• On the interpretation of negative birefringence observed in strong-field optical pump-probe experiments: high-order Kerr and plasma grating effects
• Adiabatic Floquet model for the optical response in femtosecond filaments
• Ab-initio calculations of laser-atom interactions reveal harmonics feedback during macroscopic propagation
• Modulational instability windows in the nonlinear Schrödinger equation involving higher-order Kerr responses
• Nonlinear Nonperturbative Optics Model Enriched by Evolution Equation for Polarization