Electron rotational asymmetry in strong-field photodetachment from F- by circularly polarized laser pulses

Abstract

We use the R-matrix with time dependence method to study detachment from F- in circularly polarized laser fields of infrared wavelength. By decomposing the photoelectron momentum distribution into separate contributions from detached 2p1 and 2p-1 electrons, we demonstrate that the detachment yield is distributed asymmetrically with respect to these initial orbitals. We observe the well-known preference for strong-field detachment of electrons that are initially counter-rotating relative to the field, and calculate the variation in this preference as a function of photoelectron energy. The wavelengths used in this work provide natural grounds for comparison between our calculations and the predictions of analytical approaches tailored for the strong-field regime. In particular, we compare the ratio of counter-rotating electrons to corotating electrons as a function of photoelectron energy. We carry out this comparison at two wavelengths, and observe good qualitative agreement between the analytical predictions and our numerical results.