paper

High-order harmonic generation from an atom in a disordered environment

arXiv:2605.21223 · doi:10.1063/5.0346384

Abstract

Using one-dimensional simulations analyzed through the lens of open quantum systems, we study the photoelectron's strong-field dynamics from an atom surrounded by a scattering environment stochastically structured. We theoretically investigate high-order harmonic generation from this situation. We show that local dephasing of the photoelectron wavepacket induced by elastic scattering leads to global decoherence. This drives a transition from quantum to classical behavior, as witnessed by the photoelectron probability density localizing around specific trajectories of the classical analog system: unstable periodic orbits. This phenomenon mirrors quantum scars traditionally observed in the eigenfunctions of time-independent systems, such as quantum billiards. Here, it emerges in-situ within a time-dependent framework, manifesting directly in the real-time dynamics from the ground state rather than solely through spectral analysis.

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