Photoelectron polarisation in resonant two-photon ionisation with superstrong continuous excitation

Abstract

Non-perturbative completely analytic calculations of the spin polarisation of photoelectrons produced in resonant two-photon ionisation of alkali atoms with exciting and ionising light beams are presented. A well justified alkali atom model composed of four discrete states and the continuum is applied. Contrary to simpler models it enabled one to obtain results valid when the effective resonance Rabi frequency exceeds the frequency separation between the two components forming a given fine-structure energy doublet at resonance. It is shown that in this limit the photoelectron polarisation depends critically on whether a light or heavy alkali atom is ionised. In the former case the photoelectron polarisation is proved to be a copy of the electronic polarisation of the atom, whereas in the case of heavier alkalis it departs appreciably from that of the ionised atom due entirely to spin-orbit perturbation of radial wavefunctions of P discrete states. It is also shown how the author's present results go over into those previously obtained for weaker exciting fields.