Luca Argenti

Ionization branching ratio control with a resonance attosecond clock.

We investigate the possibility to monitor the dynamics of autoionizing states in real-time and control the yields of different ionization channels in helium by simulating extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pump IR-probe experiments focused on the N=2 threshold. The XUV pulse creates a coherent superposition of doubly excited states which is found to decay by ejecting electrons in bursts. Prominent interference fringes in the photoelectron angular distribution of the 2s and 2p ionization channels are observed, along with significant out-of-phase quantum beats in the yields of the corresponding parent ions.

Nondipole effects in helium photoionization

An accurate calculation of the nondipole anisotropy parameter γ in the photoionization of helium below the N = 2 threshold is presented. The calculated results are in fairly good agreement with the experimental results of Krassig et al (2002 Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 203002), but not as good as the accuracy of the calculation should have warranted. A careful examination of the possible causes for the observed discrepancies between theory and experiment seems to rule out any role either of the multipolar terms higher than the electric quadrupole, or of the singlet–triplet spin–orbit mixing. It is argued that such discrepancies might have an instrumental origin, due to the difficulty of measuring vanishingly small total cross sections σtot with the required accuracy. In such eventuality, it might be more appropriate to use a parameter other than γ, such as for instance the drag current, to measure the nondipole anisotropy of the photoelectron angular distribution.

The structure behind it all

The talk discussed collisions where the structure of the systems involved plays a decisive role for the outcome of the event. For many types of charge changing processes the presence of resonant states can change the probability for a certain reaction by orders of magnitude. One example of this is electron-ion recombination where the resonant states are doubly or even multiply excited states lying above the ionization threshold of the recombined ion. The concept of a resonant state is discussed with the help of a simple model. The influence of such states is then illustrated through a few examples where some different calculational methods are compared with experiments. Finally, the possibility to also obtain accurate spectroscopical information from a collisional process is discussed.

Solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation using uniform complex scaling

The formalism of complex rotation of the radial coordinate is studied in the context of time dependent systems. Complex rotation proves to be an efficient tool to obtain ionization probabilities and rates. Although, in principle, any information about the system may be obtained from the rotated wave function by transforming it back to its unrotated form, a good description of the ionized part of the wave function is generally subject to numerical challenges.