Ionization of helium by intense XUV laser pulses: Numerical simulations on channel-resolved probabilities

Abstract

Ionization of a helium atom by intense extreme ultraviolet laser pulses is investigated in a frequency regime where the high-frequency stabilization condition is only fulfilled for the lowest single ionization channel. Multiphoton double ionization substantially contributes to the total ionization probability for superintense fields. As a result, no obvious stabilization against total ionization occurs. A detailed view of probabilities into different single ionization channels as a function of the field strength is presented. We find that the probabilities into some ionic channels peak at field strengths corresponding to one-photon resonances between field-dressed ionic states in the high-frequency Floquet theory. Thus we propose a sequential ``ionization-excitation'' mechanism in the dressed energy picture: first, one-photon absorption causes single ionization, leaving the ion in its dressed ground state; second, the ion is excited to a new state via one-photon absorption at the field strength where the resonance condition in the dressed ionic system is fulfilled. To reveal the sequential mechanism in the time domain, we also take a time-dependent view on the channel-resolved probabilities, observing the decrease of the ground-state ionic channel probability during the laser pulse when the field strength is such that a resonance condition exists between the dressed states in the ion.