Universal pulse dependence of the low-energy structure in strong-field ionization

Abstract

We determine quantitatively the laser pulse duration dependence of the low-energy structure (LES) in strong-field atomic ionization and establish its universal character. The electron energy measurement is performed on krypton and argon by varying the duration of a 1.8 $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{m}$ midinfrared pulse from two to ten cycles. Comparing the experiment with analytical and numerical results, the soft-recollision mechanism leading to electron momentum bunching is confirmed as the origin of the LES. The universal behavior of the LES peak energy on pulse duration emerges from an analytical description as a product of two factors: one contains the influence of the laser parameters and the target, while the other one describes the pulse duration dependence in terms of optical cycles.