Field ionization in short and extremely intense laser pulses

Abstract

Modern laser systems are able to generate short and intense laser pulses ionizing matter in the poorly explored barrier-suppression regime. Field ionization in this regime is studied analytically and numerically. For analytical studies, both the classical and the quantum approaches are used. Two approximations to solve the time-dependent Schrödinger equation are proposed: the free electron approximation, in which the atomic potential is neglected, and the motionless approximation, in which only the external field term is considered. In the motionless approximation, the ionization rate in extremely strong fields is derived. The approximations are applied to several model potentials and are verified using numeric simulations of the Schrödinger equation. A simple formula of the ionization rate both for the tunnel and the barrier-suppression regimes is proposed. The formula can be used, for example, in particle-in-cell codes for simulations of the interaction of extremely intense laser fields with matter.

References in corpus (5)

• SMILEI: a collaborative, open-source, multi-purpose particle-in-cell code for plasma simulation
• Experimental signatures of the quantum nature of radiation reaction in the field of an ultra-intense laser
• Exact field ionization rates in the barrier suppression-regime from numerical TDSE calculations
• Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades
• Ionization-induced laser-driven QED cascade in noble gases

Cited by in corpus (5)

• A systematic construction of Gaussian basis sets for the description of laser field ionization and high-harmonic generation
• Diagnostics of ultra-intense laser pulses using tunneling ionization
• Direct Laser Ion Acceleration and Above-Threshold Ionization at Intensities from $10^{21}$ W/cm${}^2$ to $3\times 10^{23}$ W/cm${}^2$
• Ionization states for the multi-petawatt laser-QED regime
• Field ionization rate for PIC codes