Selection of the magnetic quantum number in resonant ionization of neon using an XUV–IR two-color laser field

Abstract

A recent experiment (Villeneuve et al 2017 Science 356 1150) has shown that two-color photoionization of neon by the combination of an attosecond XUV pulse train and a moderately strong, linearly polarized IR pulse can preferentially produce photoelectrons with orbital angular quantum number l = 3 (f-wave) and magnetic quantum number m = 0. This result was rationalized by the occurrence of different Stark shifts of m = 0 and |m| = 1 sub-levels in the IR laser field. Here we perform 3D time-dependent Schrödinger equation calculations with a neon effective potential to identify the mechanism for the selective excitation and ionization of m = 0 sub-levels. Calculations of the ionization and excitation yields as a function of the IR intensity and the XUV and IR photon energy reveal that a coupling between two dominant ionization channels involving 3p and 3d intermediate excitations is responsible for the observed m-level selectivity. We compare calculated and measured photoelectron velocity map images and ionization yields over a range of IR intensities and XUV and IR photon energies, and confirm that the m = 0 or |m| = 1 channel, and thus a single set of the quantum numbers, (Jion, l, m), can be selected by an appropriate choice of these parameters.