Attosecond Transient Absorption Spectroscopy without Inversion Symmetry

Abstract

Transient absorption is a very powerful observable in attosecond experiments on atoms, molecules and solids and is frequently used in experiments employing phase-locked few-cycle infrared and XUV laser pulses derived from high harmonic generation. We show numerically and analytically that in non-centrosymmetric systems, such as many polyatomic molecules, which-way interference enabled by the lack of parity conservation leads to new spectral absorption features, which directly reveal the laser electric field. The extension of Attosecond Transient Absorption Spectroscopy (ATAS) to such targets hence becomes sensitive to global and local inversion symmetry. We anticipate that ATAS will find new applications in non-centrosymmetric systems, in which the carrier-to-envelope phase of the infrared pulse becomes a relevant parameter and in which the orientation of the sample and the electronic symmetry of the molecule can be addressed.

arXiv comment10 pages, 2 figures

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Attosecond Transient Absorption Spectroscopy of Strongly Correlated Mott Insulators: Signature of the Creation and Annihilation of Double Occupancy
• Enantiosensitive exceptional points in open chiral systems