Direct Experimental Access to the Nonadiabatic Initial Momentum Offset upon Tunnel Ionization

Abstract

We report on the non-adiabatic offset of the initial electron momentum distribution in the plane of polarization upon single ionization of argon by strong field tunneling and show how to experimentally control the degree of non-adiabaticity. Two-color counter- and co-rotating fields (390 and 780 nm) are compared to show that the non-adiabatic offset strongly depends on the temporal evolution of the laser electric field. We introduce a simple method for the direct access to the non-adiabatic offset using two-color counter- and co-rotating fields. Further, for a single-color circularly polarized field at 780 nm we show that the radius of the experimentally observed donut-like distribution increases for increasing momentum in the light propagation direction. Our observed initial momentum offsets are well reproduced by the strong-field approximation (SFA). A mechanistic picture is introduced that links the measured non-adiabatic offset to the magnetic quantum number of virtually populated intermediate states.

arXiv comment6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (8)

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• Semiclassical two-step model for strong-field ionization
• Ultrafast Preparation and Detection of Ring Currents in Single Atoms
• Non-Sequential Double Ionization by Counter Rotating Circularly Polarized Two-Color Laser Fields
• Tunneling dynamics in multiphoton ionization and attoclock calibration
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• Photoelectron holographic interferometry to probe the longitudinal momentum offset at the tunnel exit
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• Numerical attoclock on atomic and molecular hydrogen
• Attosecond Ionization Time Delays in Strong-Field Physics
• Holographic Angular Streaking of Electrons and the Wigner-Time Delay
• Sideband Modulation by Sub-Cycle Interference
• Nondipole effects in tunneling ionization by intense laser pulses
• Orientation Dependent Dissociative Ionization of H${}_2$ in Strong Elliptic Laser Fields: Modification of the release time through molecular orientation
• Quantum interference and imaging using intense laser fields
• Experimental fingerprint of the electron's longitudinal momentum at the tunnel exit in strong field ionization
• Nonadiabatic effects in the double ionization of atoms driven by a circularly polarized laser pulse
• Chiral Electron Momentum Distribution upon Strong-Field Ionization of Atoms
• Non-adiabatic Strong Field Ionization of Atomic Hydrogen