Atomic and molecular dynamics triggered by ultrashort light pulses on the atto- to picosecond time scale

Abstract

Time-resolved investigations of ultrafast electronic and molecular dynamics were not possible until recently. The typical time scale of these processes is in the picosecond to attosecond realm. The tremendous technological progress in recent years made it possible to generate ultrashort pulses, which can be used to trigger, to watch, and to control atomic and molecular motion. This tutorial focuses on experimental and theoretical advances which are used to study the dynamics of electrons and molecules in the presence of ultrashort pulses. In the first part, the rotational dynamics of molecules, which happens on picosecond and femtosecond time scales, is reviewed. Well-aligned molecules are particularly suitable for angle-dependent investigations like x-ray diffraction or strong-field ionization experiments. In the second part, the ionization dynamics of atoms is studied. The characteristic time scale lies, here, in the attosecond to few-femtosecond regime. Although a one-particle picture has been successfully applied to many processes, many-body effects do constantly occur. After a broad overview of the main mechanisms and the most common tools in attosecond physics, examples of many-body dynamics in the attosecond world (e.g., in high-harmonic generation and attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy) are discussed.

review, 67 pages

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Cited by in corpus (19)

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• Strong-Field Many-Body Physics and the Giant Enhancement in the High-Harmonic Spectrum of Xenon
• Time-dependent optimized coupled-cluster method for multielectron dynamics
• Orientation and Alignment Echoes
• Probe of Multi-electron Dynamics in Xenon by Caustics in High Order Harmonic Generation
• Calculation of photoelectron spectra within the time-dependent configuration interaction singles scheme
• Can strong-field ionization prepare attosecond dynamics?
• Observation of Bloch oscillations in molecular rotation
• Fractional Echoes
• Spin-Orbit Effects in Atomic High-Harmonic Generation
• Introducing many-body physics using atomic spectroscopy
• Theoretical characterization of the collective resonance states underlying the xenon giant dipole resonance
• Controlling the $2p$ Hole Alignment in Neon via the $2s$-$3p$ Fano Resonance
• Recombination Amplitude Calculations of Noble Gases, in Length and Acceleration Forms, beyond Strong Field Approximation
• General phenomenology of ionization from aligned molecular ensembles
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• Collective resonances of atomic xenon from the linear to the nonlinear regime
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