Unified understanding of tunneling ionization and stabilization of atomic hydrogen in circularly and linearly polarized intense laser fields

Abstract

On the basis of the Floquet formalism, the ionization mechanisms of atomic hydrogen in circularly and linearly polarized intense laser fields are discussed. By using the complex scaling method in the velocity gauge, the pole positions of the scattering-matrix on the complex quasienergy Riemann surface are calculated, and pole trajectories with respect to the variation of the laser intensity are obtained. In the low-frequency regime, the pole trajectory exhibits a smooth ponderomotive energy shift in the case of circular polarization. In contrast, the smoothness is lost in the case of linear polarization. In the high-frequency regime, the pole trajectories exhibit the stabilization phenomenon for both the types of polarization. These observations are elucidated by a unified picture based on the analysis of the adiabatic potentials for the radial motion of the electron in the acceleration gauge. The ionization in the case of circular polarization of the low-frequency regime is governed by the electron tunneling through a barrier of a single adiabatic potential. The stabilization in the high-frequency regime can be explained by the change in the avoided crossings among the adiabatic potential curves. The transition between the different frequency regimes is explicable by the change in the structure of themore » adiabatic potentials. The difference caused by the type of polarization is ascribable to the difference in the space-time symmetry.« less