Photoionization dynamics in the presence of attosecond pulse trains and strong fields

Abstract

We present experimental results and a theoretical framework for understanding the ionization dynamics in atoms exposed to XUV attosecond pulse trains and strong multi-cycle infrared (IR) fields. We invoke the Floquet formalism to model dressed atomic states as a manifold of Fourier components spaced by the laser frequency. In XUV-IR pump-probe measurements, we observe that the ionization yield oscillates due to quantum interference between photo-excitation paths to a Floquet state. We show that the intensity-dependent shifts of atomic structure modify the ionization channels and the associated interference phase. We extract this phase variation and compare it with simulations. These results provide a comprehensive description of the two-color ionization process and enable new schemes for control of attosecond ionization and fragmentation dynamics. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.