Decoherence in Attosecond Photoionization

Stefan Pabst,Loren Greenman,David A Mazziotti,Phay J Ho,Robin Santra

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.106.053003

Abstract

The creation of superpositions of hole states via single-photon ionization using attosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulses is studied with the time-dependent configuration-interaction singles (TDCIS) method. Specifically, the degree of coherence between hole states in atomic xenon is investigated. We find that interchannel coupling not only affects the hole populations, but it also enhances the entanglement between the photoelectron and the remaining ion, thereby reducing the coherence within the ion. As a consequence, even if the spectral bandwidth of the ionizing pulse exceeds the energy splittings among the hole states involved, perfectly coherent hole wave packets cannot be formed. For sufficiently large spectral bandwidth, the coherence can only be increased by increasing the mean photon energy.

Highlights

The typical time scale of electronic motion in atoms, molecules, and condensed matter systems ranges from a few attoseconds (1 as = 10−18 s) to tens of femtoseconds (1 fs = 10−15 s) [1,2,3]
P T The creation of superpositions of hole states via single-photon ionization using attosecond O U extreme-ultraviolet pulses is studied with the time-dependent configuration interaction singles (TDC B CIS) method
We find that interchannel coupling affects the hole populations, it enhances W R the entanglement between the photoelectron and the remaining ion, thereby reducing the coherence IE T within the ion

Summary

Introduction

We find that interchannel coupling affects the hole populations, it enhances W R the entanglement between the photoelectron and the remaining ion, thereby reducing the coherence IE T within the ion. For attosecond pulses with large spectral bandwidths, the enhanced production of slow photoelectrons will affect (mainly via interchannel coupling) both the final hole populations and the coherence among these hole states.

Results

Conclusion