Virtual-detector approach to tunnel ionization and tunneling times

Abstract

Tunneling times in atomic ionization are studied theoretically by a virtual detector approach. A virtual detector is a hypothetical device that allows one to monitor the wave function's density with spatial and temporal resolution during the ionization process. With this theoretical approach, it becomes possible to define unique moments when the electron enters and leaves with highest probability the classically forbidden region from first principles and a tunneling time can be specified unambiguously. It is shown that neither the moment when the electron enters the tunneling barrier nor when it leaves the tunneling barrier coincides with the moment when the external electric field reaches its maximum. Under the tunneling barrier as well as at the exit the electron has a nonzero velocity in the electric field direction. This nonzero exit velocity has to be incorporated when the free motion of the electron is modeled by classical equations of motion.

References in corpus (11)

• Tunneling Time in Ultrafast Science is Real and Probabilistic
• Delay in atomic photoionization
• Ionization Time and Exit Momentum in Strong-Field Tunnel Ionization
• Under-the-barrier dynamics in laser-induced relativistic tunneling
• Tunneling dynamics in multiphoton ionization and attoclock calibration
• Non-adiabatic Coulomb effects in strong field ionisation in circularly polarised laser fields
• Relativistic features and time delay of laser-induced tunnel-ionization
• The Wigner time delay for laser induced tunnel-ionization via the electron propagator
• Krylov subspace methods for the Dirac equation
• Timescales of tunneling decay of a localized state
• On the two-dimensional Coulomb-like potential with a central point interaction

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Attoclock revisited on electron tunnelling time
• Quantum Battles in Attoscience -- Tunnelling
• Reconciling conflicting approaches for the tunneling time delay in strong field ionization
• On the longitudinal momentum of the electron at the tunneling exit
• Semiclassical two-step model with quantum input: Quantum-classical approach to strong-field ionization
• The Salecker-Wigner-Peres clock, Feynman paths, and a tunnelling time that should not exist
• Extended virtual detector theory including quantum interferences
• The role of reflections in the generation of a time delay in strong field ionization
• Sub-barrier recollisions and the three classes of tunneling time delays in strong-field ionization
• Salecker-Wigner-Peres quantum clock applied to strong-field tunnel ionization
• Many-body effects in the excitations and dynamics of trapped Bose-Einstein condensates
• Transition time estimation for $\delta$-function coupling in two state problem: An analytically solvable model