Azimuthal angular distributions for two-colour three-photon ionization of hydrogen

Abstract

We study in some detail the photoelectron angular distributions in two-colour three-photon ionization of the ground state hydrogen atom in its dependence on the polarizations of the two electromagnetic fields. We treat the particular case of photons propagating in the same direction and having elliptic polarizations with the same axes. The azimuthal distributions presented refer to the electrons emitted with momenta orthogonal to the photons direction. The calculations are done in nonrelativistic dipole approximation, in velocity gauge, using third-order perturbation theory. We show that the photoelectron azimuthal angular distributions have a fourfold symmetry only for identical linear or circular polarizations. In all the other cases the distribution has a twofold symmetry.