The asymmetric photoionization of atoms irradiated by intense, few-cycle laser pulses is studied numerically. The results show that the pulse intensity affects the asymmetric photoionization in three aspects. First, at higher intensities, the asymmetry becomes distinctive for few-cycle pulses of longer durations. Second, as the laser intensity increases, the maximal asymmetry first decreases then increases after it has reached a minimal value. Last, the value of the carrier-envelope phase corresponding to the maximal asymmetry varies with the pulse intensity. This study reveals that the increasing of pulse intensity is helpful for observing the asymmetric photoionization.
The photoelectron angular distributions （PADs） of hydrogen atoms in an intense laser field of linear polarization are studied using the S-matrix theory in the length gauge. The PADs show main lobes along the laser polarization and jet-like structures sticking from the waist of main lobes. Our previous prediction, based on a nonperturbative scattering theory of photoionization developed by Guo et al, showing that the number of jets on one side of PADs may increase by one, three, or other odd numbers and may decrease by one when one more photon is absorbed, is confirmed by this treatment. Within the strong-field approximation, good agreement is obtained between these two quite different treatments. We further study the influence of the Coulomb attraction to PADs, by taking a Coulomb-Volkov state as the continuum state of photoelectrons. We find that under the influence of the Coulomb attraction, the PADs change greatly but the predicted phenomena still appear. This study verifies that the jet-like structures have no relation with the angular momentum of photoelectrons.
This paper uses a nonperturbative scattering theory to study photoelectron angular distributions of homonuclear diatomic molecules irradiated by circularly polarized laser fields. This study shows that the nonisotropic feature of photoelectron angular distributions is not due to the polarization of the laser field but the internuclear vector of the molecules. It suggests a method to measure the molecular orientation and the internuclear distance of molecules through the measurement of photoelectron angular distributions.
