Macroscopic studies of short-pulse high-order harmonic generation using the time-dependent Schrödinger equation

Abstract

We consider high harmonic generation by ultrashort (27–108 fs) laser pulses and calculate the macroscopic response of a collection of atoms to such a short pulse. We show how the harmonic spectrum after propagation through the medium is significantly different from the single-atom spectrum. We use single-atom data calculated by integration of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation and propose a method, based on an adiabatic approximation, to extract the data necessary to perform a propagation calculation. © 1998 The American Physical Society.