Frustrated double ionization of argon atoms in strong laser fields

Abstract

We demonstrate kinematically complete measurements on frustrated double ionization of argon atoms in strong laser fields with a reaction microscope. We found that the electron trapping probability after strong-field double ionization is much higher than that after strong-field single ionization, especially in the case of high laser intensity. The retrieved electron momentum distributions of frustrated double ionization show a clear transition from the nonsequential to the sequential regime, similar to those of strong-field double ionization. The dependence of electron momentum width on the laser intensity further indicates that the second released electron has a dominant contribution to frustrated double ionization in the sequential regime.