Analytical expression for continuum–continuum transition amplitude of hydrogen-like atoms with angular-momentum dependence

Abstract

Abstract Attosecond chronoscopy typically utilises interfering two-photon transitions to access the phase information. Simulating these two-photon transitions is challenging due to the continuum–continuum transition term. The hydrogenic approximation within second-order perturbation theory has been widely used due to the existence of analytical expressions of the wave functions. So far, only (partially) asymptotic results have been derived, which fail to correctly describe the low-kinetic-energy behaviour, especially for high angular-momentum states. Here, we report an analytical expression that overcomes these limitations. It is based on the Appell’s F 1 function and uses the confluent hypergeometric function of the second kind as the intermediate state. We show that the derived formula quantitatively agrees with the numerical simulations using the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for various angular-momentum states, which improves the accuracy compared to the other analytical approaches that were previously reported. Furthermore, we give an angular-momentum-dependent asymptotic form of the outgoing wavefunction and the corresponding continuum–continuum dipole transition amplitudes.