Photodetachment of H− near a hard wall with arbitrary laser polarization direction

Abstract

The photodetachment of H− near a hard wall is investigated with linear polarized laser light travelling in arbitrary direction θL with respect to the z axis. An analytical formula for the total cross section is derived using semi-classical closed orbit theory, which consists of two terms, i.e., the smooth background term and the oscillatory term with an extra factor 2(θL). This factor controls oscillations in the total photodetachment cross section. The amplitude of oscillation is maximum at θL = 0 when the laser polarization direction is perpendicular to the wall and it approaches zero at θL = π /2 when the laser polarization direction is parallel to the wall. It is also observed that the total cross section depends on the source–wall distance and it reduces to a free space case when the wall is at infinite distance from the source.