A Rotating-Frame Perspective on High-Harmonic Generation of Circularly Polarized Light

Abstract

We employ a rotating frame of reference to elucidate high-harmonic generation of circularly polarized light by bicircular driving fields. In particular, we show how the experimentally observed circular components of the high-harmonic spectrum can be directly related to the corresponding quantities in the rotating frame. Supported by numerical simulations of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, we deduce an optimal strategy for maximizing the cutoff in the high-harmonic plateau while keeping the two circular components of the emitted light spectrally distinct. Moreover, we show how the rotating-frame picture can be more generally employed for elliptical drivers. Finally, we point out how circular and elliptical driving fields show a near-duality to static electric and static magnetic fields in a rotating-frame description. This demonstrates how high-harmonic generation of circularly polarized light under static electromagnetic fields can be emulated in practice even at static field strengths beyond current experimental capabilities.

arXiv comment10 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Generation of phase-matched circularly-polarized extreme ultraviolet high harmonics for magnetic circular dichroism spectroscopy
• A practical scheme for generating isolated elliptically polarized attosecond pulses using bi-chromatic counter rotating circularly polarized laser fields
• Spin conservation in high-order-harmonic generation using bicircular fields
• Dynamical symmetries and harmonic generation
• Dirac equation: Representation independence and tensor transformation

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Illuminating Molecular Symmetries with Bicircular High-Order-Harmonic Generation
• High-order harmonic generation in polyatomic molecules induced by a bicircular laser field
• Strong-field approximation in a rotating frame: High-order harmonic emission from p states in bicircular fields
• Helicity reversion in high harmonic generation driven by bichromatic counterrotating circularly polarized laser fields
• Photoelectron momentum distributions in the strong-field ionization of atomic hydrogen by few-cycle elliptically polarized optical pulses
• Strong-field photoionization by circularly polarized light
• High-purity valley-polarized currents induced by bichromatic optical fields in two-dimensional materials