Controlling Three-Dimensional Electron–Electron Correlation via Elliptically Polarized Intense Laser Field**Supported by the National Key Program for S&T Research and Development under Grant No 2016YFA0401100, the National Basic Research Program of China under Grant No 2013CB922201, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 11504215, 11374197, 11334009 and 11425414.

Abstract

The three-dimensional electron–electron correlation in an elliptically polarized laser field is investigated based on a semiclassical model. Asymmetry parameter α of the correlated electron momentum distribution is used to quantitatively describe the electron–electron correlation. The dependence of α on ellipticity ε is totally different in three directions. For the z direction (major polarization direction), α first increases and reaches a maximum at , then it decreases quickly. For the y direction in which the laser field is always absent, the ellipticity has a minor effect, and the asymmetry parameter fluctuates around . However, for the x direction (minor polarization direction), α increases monotonously with ellipticity though starts from the same value as in the y direction when . The behavior of α in the x direction actually indicates a transformation from the Coulomb interaction dominated correlation to the laser field dominated correlation. Therefore, our work provides an efficient way to control the three-dimensional electron–electron correlation via an elliptically polarized intense laser field.