Comparative analysis of the strong-field ionization of a quantum system with the Coulomb and short-range potentials

Abstract

The dynamics of a hydrogen atom and a 3D model quantum system with a short-range potential is investigated using the direct numerical integration of the nonstationary Schrodinger equation in a wide range of laser intensities and frequencies. The simulation data are compared with the predictions of variants of the Keldysh-type theories. It is demonstrated that, in the low-frequency (tunnel) limit, the ionization rates of the systems with the Coulomb and short-range potentials and the same values of the ionization potential significantly differ from each other whereas, in the high-frequency (single-photon) limit, we do not observe a substantial difference between the ionization rates. Specific features of the angular distribution of the photoelectron emission and the photoelectron energy spectra are investigated in detail. In addition, the ionization suppression is studied for both Coulomb- and short-range-potential atoms. The stabilization is due to the dramatic reconstruction of the atom in the presence of a strong laser field and the formation of a new system (Kramers-Henneberger atom) that exhibits an increasing resistance to the ionization upon an increase in the laser intensity. In the two-photon ionization regime, the stabilization phenomenon is substantially more pronounced for the system with the Coulomb potential. This results from the effective excitation of the Rydberg states of the dressed atom in the strong-field limit.