Magnetic-field effect in atomic ionization by

intense laser fields

J.R. Vázquez de Aldana and Luis Roso
Departamento de Fı́sica Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias,
Universidad de Salamanca. E-37008 Salamanca, Spain.

roso@gugu.usal.es

Abstract: Numerical integrations of the two-dimensional Schrödinger

equation that describes a flat atom interacting with an intense and lin-
early polarized laser field are presented. Simulations show the influence
of the drift that is due to the magnetic field in situations in which
a strong dichotomy of the wave function would otherwise have been
expected.

1999
c Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (020.4180) Multiphoton processes; (300.6410) Spectroscopy, multi-
photon.

References
1. J. H. Eberly, R. Grobe, C. K. Law and Q. Su, “Numerical experiments in strong and super-strong
fields,” in Atoms in Intense Laser Fields, M. Gavrila, ed. (Academic, San Diego, Calif., 1992).
2. K. C. Kulander, K. J. Schafer and J. L. Krause, “Time-dependent studies of multiphoton pro-
cesses,” in Atoms in Intense Laser Fields, M. Gavrila, ed. (Academic, San Diego, Calif., 1992).
3. Q. Su, A. Sanpera and L. Roso-Franco, “Atomic stabilization in the presence of intense laser
pulses,” Int. J. Mod. Phys. B 8, 1655 (1994).
4. M. Gavrila, “Atomic structure and decay in high frequency fields,” in Atoms in Intense Laser
Fields, M. Gavrila, ed. (Academic, San Diego, Calif., 1992), and references therein.
5. M. Protopapas, C. H. Keitel and P. L. Knight,“Atomic physics with super-high intensity lasers,”
Rep. Prog. Phys. 60, 389-486 (1997), and references therein.
6. A. Patel, N. J. Kylstra and P. L. Knight, “Ellipticity and pulse shape dependence of localised
wavepackets,” Opt. Express 4, 496-537 (1999).
7. M. Protopapas, C. H. Keitel and P. L. Knight, “Relativistic mass shift effects in adiabatic intense
laser field stabilization of atoms,” J. Phys. B 29, L591-L598 (1996).
8. C. H. Keitel and P. L. Knight, “Monte Carlo classical simulations of ionization and harmonic
generation in the relativistic domain,” Phys. Rev. A 51, 1420-1430 (1995).
9. P. Moreno, “Harmonic generation by H and H2 + in intense laser pulses,” Ph. D. dissertation,
(Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain, 1997).
10. A. D. Bandrauk and H. Shen, “Exponential split operator methods for solving coupled time-
dependent Schrödinger equations,” J. Chem. Phys. 99, 1185-1193 (1993).

The absence of systematic nonperturbative models to describe intense atomic

laser field ionization has stimulated the development of purely numerical methods [1,2,3].
For example, stabilization of atoms against ionization by an intense high-frequency laser
beam has been widely studied over the past decade [4,5]. All the approaches to stabiliza-
tion with a linearly poralized laser field (Floquet theory in the Kramers Henneberger
frame, direct numerical integration of the wave equation, classic methods, etc.) have
in common the presence of a highly distorted wave function that is spread along the
polarization direction over a region whose width is given by the classic motion of the
electron. This effect, sometimes referred as dichotomy when the wave function shows

#11811 - $15.00 US Received July 12, 1999; Revised September 08, 1999
(C) 1999 OSA 27 September 1999 / Vol. 5, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 144
mostly a two-peaked structure, is the starting point for our understanding of the phys-
ical origin of the atomic stabilization. The existence of this effect is surprising because
the electron is not ionized during this motion close to the nucleus. In elliptically po-
larized fields stabilization is also expected, but the shape of the stabilized wave packet
changes significantly [6].
To our knowledge, no clear experiments to observe atomic stabilization have
been reported. One of the main difficulties in designing such an experiment is the high
frequency of the laser photons needed. To get proper Kramers Henneberger stabilization
it is necessary to use a short-wavelength, intense laser field. It is widely believed that
this effect will appear as soon as convenient light sources become available.
Because such intense fields are employed, several studies of the relativistic dy-
namics related to stabilization have been developed [7] that show how changes in the
electron’s mass influence the classic excursion of the electron. To our knowledge, there
are no detailed quantum studies of the influence of the magnetic field on the electron
dynamics, though some classic relativistic analyses have been carried out [8]. Relativis-
tic mass change is at least a second-order effect in v/c, whereas the drift that is due to
the magnetic field is a first-order effect in v/c and therefore it would appear first, as the
increase in the field strength drives the electron to higher velocities.
The problem with magnetic effects is that they are absent from the standard
one-dimensional model, that has been widely used for study of atomic stabilization.
Fortunately today it is feasible to solve two-dimensional models that are able to account
for magnetic-field effects. Three-dimensional models are still a bit too impractical for
use in ionization situations, for which large numerical grids have to be employed.
There is a range of laser parameters (frequency and intensity) at which the
velocity is small enough to permit us to assume that the electron dynamics is given by the
Schrödinger equation and large enough to include the first-order relativistic correction:
The influence of the magnetic field. To study this region, we present numerical solutions
of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation
" #
∂ 1 1 2
i Ψ(r, t) = p + A(r, t) + V (r) Ψ(r, t), (1)
∂t 2 c

which describes an atom interacting with an electromagnetic field. Atomic units (au;
e = m = 1 au, c = 137 au) are used throughout this paper. Because of computer
limitations we work with a two-dimensional model, considering a flat atom in the xy
plane with a soft-core Coulomb potential:
1
V (x, y) = − , (2)
(x2 + y 2 + a)1/2

where a is a parameter that avoids singularity at the origin and was chosen to be
a = 1 au in our calculations. The spatial grid where the Schrödinger equation is solved
has 1300 × 3000 equally separated points, with a step size of ∆x = ∆y = 0.2 au.
In this grid and for the chosen value of a, the ground-state energy of the model is
EB = −0.43 au, as determined by the standard imaginary-time propagation method.
To have the electron dynamics restricted to the xy plane we assume that the
electric field is linearly polarized along the y axis and that the pulse propagates along
the x axis. Then the magnetic field is parallel to the z axis. Therefore the classic Lorentz
force will drive the electron (initially at rest) inside the z = 0 plane. The electric field is

Ey (x, t) = E0 f (x, t) sin(kx − ωL t), (3)

#11811 - $15.00 US Received July 12, 1999; Revised September 08, 1999
(C) 1999 OSA 27 September 1999 / Vol. 5, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 145
where f (x, t) is the laser turn-on, which is chosen to be linear and to last four cycles of
the field. The vector potential is defined by
Z t
Ay (x, t) = −c Ey (x, t0 )dt0 . (4)
0

Therefore the two-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation for such

an atomic model interacting with a laser field is
" #
∂ 1  ∂2 ∂2  i ∂ 1 2
i Ψ(x, y, t) = + − Ay (x, t) + 2 Ay (x, t) + V (x, y) Ψ(x, y, t). (5)
∂t 2 ∂x2 ∂y 2 c ∂y 2c

Observe that the space dependence of the fields has been retained. We are not working
in the dipole approximation or, in other words, we are retaining the magnetic-field effect
in the nonrelativistic Lorentz force.
The numerical method employed in this paper to solve the Schrödinger equation
out of the dipole approximation, is a generalization of those methods that were used
to solve the dipole Schrödinger equation [5,9] in the case of spatially dependent fields.
The wave function at a given time t + ∆t is calculated from the wave function in the
previous time step t [10]:
h i
Ψ(x, y, t + ∆t) = exp − i∆tĤ(t + ∆t/2) Ψ(x, y, t)
" #
∆t h i
' exp − i Ĥx (t + ∆t/2) exp − i∆tĤy (t + ∆t/2)
2
" #
∆t
× exp − i Ĥx (t + ∆t/2) Ψ(x, y, t), (6)
2

where we have defined

1 ∂2 1 1
Ĥx (t) = − + V (x, y) + 2 Ay 2 (x, t),
2 ∂x2 2 2c
1 ∂2 1 i ∂
Ĥy (t) = − 2
+ V (x, y) − Ay (x, t) . (7)
2 ∂y 2 c ∂y
Now we express the exponentials in the Cayley unitary form (which preserves the norm
of the wave function), and we solve the equations by using the Crank Nicholson finite-
difference scheme. It is not possible to use Fourier-transform methods directly because
the term Ay (x, t)(∂/∂y) mixes momentum and space coordinates.
Laser parameters at which stabilization is expected are chosen for our simu-
lations. Figure 1 shows the probability density of the electron after 10 cycles of the
field, comparing these kinds of (nondipolar) simulation with the corresponding two-
dimensional calculation in the dipole approximation [Ey (x, t) ' Ey (t) = E0 f (t) sin(ωL t)]
with the same laser parameters. Figure 1 corresponds to a laser field of amplitude
E0 = 15 au (intensity, 7.9 × 1018 W/cm2 ) and frequency ωL = 1 au (photon energy,
27 eV ). This is a set of parameters for which a nonrelativistic study is reasonable but
the first order correction v/c is not extremely small. We selected these parameters be-
cause they were also selected for a recent paper in this journal [6]; we use a similar
two-dimensional model, but we take into account the space dependence of the fields.
Working in the dipole approximation, we find that the wave function shows the
expected dichotomy along the classic excursion, that is showed in the contour plot of
Figure 1(a). In this case the dipole approximation could seem to be reasonable because

#11811 - $15.00 US Received July 12, 1999; Revised September 08, 1999
(C) 1999 OSA 27 September 1999 / Vol. 5, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 146
the laser wavelength is close to 45 nm (or 861 au), which is still much bigger than
the atomic size. But the dipole approximation is not valid because of the influence of
the magnetic field. Figure 1(b) shows the computation for the same laser parameters
with the space dependence of the fields retained. The ionized population that reaches
the boundaries of the integration surface in both cases is negligible (less than 10−6
anytime).

Fig. 1a Fig. 1b

20 20

0 0
Y (au) Y (au)
-20 -20

-40 -40

-40 -20 0 20 40 -40 -20 0 20 40

X (au) X (au)

Figure 1. Probability density |Ψ(x, y, t)|2 of the electron after 10 cycles of the field
for E0 = 15 au (intensity, 7.9 × 1018 W/cm2 ) and ωL = 1 au (photon energy, 27
eV ). A linear envelope four-cycles turn-on has been employed. (a) results obtained
in the dipole approximation, (b) simulation including the space dependence of the
fields [Eq. (5)]. In both cases, contour plot lines are set to the same linear scale.

The effect of the Lorentz force is clear: The spread of the wave function is
observed not only along the polarization axis but also along the propagation axis. The
ionized population is affected by the momentum transferred by incident photons, which
push it toward the propagation direction and break the symmetry along the polarization
axis. The dichotomy is not so relevant as in the dipole case. Because of the intense electric
field, the electron reaches a high velocity (in fact, we are not too far from a breakdown
of the validity of the nonrelativisitic wave equation, as has been shown in the context
of atomic stabilization). At such high velocities, a small magnetic field is enough to
explain a drift of the electron along the propagation axis. A trivial integration of the
Lorentz force equations for a free electron in a squared pulse laser field (no turn-on
time, for simplicity) gives a magnetic drift (or drift along the propagation direction)
that is proportional to E02 /(cωL2 ) (electron initially at rest) in addition to the well-
known oscillation at 2ωL ; this is the origin of the drift shown in Fig. 1(b). Obviously, in
the case of the numerical simulation presented here, the laser turn-on and the atomic
potential reduce the magnitude of the drift.
To conclude, we have presented a two-dimensional atomic model, with a stan-
dard soft-core Coulomb potential, that shows the effects of the magnetic field in the non-
relativistic domain. In our opinion, this effect is relevant to the expected phenomenology
related to stabilization. A magnetic field can induce a small drift that prevents the elec-
tron from oscillating steadily and indicates that Kramers Henneberger treatments have
to be reconsidered at intense fields and high frequencies. To observe the expected sta-

#11811 - $15.00 US Received July 12, 1999; Revised September 08, 1999
(C) 1999 OSA 27 September 1999 / Vol. 5, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 147
bilization with a dichotomy of the wave function it would be necessary to consider the
superposition of laser fields (standing-wave or similars fields) where electric fields are
added and magnetic fields could interfere destructively.
Acknowledgments
Partial support from the Training and Mobility of Researchers Programme of the Eu-
ropean Commission, from the Spanish Dirección General de Investigación Cientı́fica y
Técnica (under contract PB95 0955), and from the Consejerı́a de Educación y Cul-
tura of the Junta de Castilla y León (Fondo Social Europeo) under grant SA56/99 is
acknowledged.

#11811 - $15.00 US Received July 12, 1999; Revised September 08, 1999
(C) 1999 OSA 27 September 1999 / Vol. 5, No. 7 / OPTICS EXPRESS 148