Invalidity of the Ehrenfest theorem in the computation of high-order-harmonic generation within the strong-field approximation

Abstract

It is known that the strong-field approximations commonly used in models for computing high-order-harmonic generation invalidate the Ehrenfest theorem. Therefore, the time derivative of the atomic dipole or of the dipole velocity does not correspond to the dipole acceleration. We study the consequences of this invalidation for the quantitative evaluation of high-order-harmonic spectra in hydrogen at different wavelengths and intensities. As a main result, we propose a form for the time derivative of the kinetic momentum that allows a quantitatively accurate computation of the acceleration spectra using the dipole-velocity matrix elements. © 2012 American Physical Society.