Three electron coincidence scheme and momentum maps for Strong-field atomic ionization

Kinematically complete measurements of charged particles are a standard tool for strong-field ionization experiments nowadays that allow one for restoring ionization dynamics from the recorded electronic and ionic momenta^1,2. Recent studies employ the well-developed two-electron coincidence technique^3,4. At the same time the three-electron coincidence schemes are a clear next possible step. We simulate such a prospective experiment with our newly developed computational code that is based on numerical solution of time-dependent Schrödinger equation on a grid^5-7. For the first time we obtain quantum-mechanical three-electron momenta distributions. These data are visualized with Dalitz plots and are further analysed. For the regime of femtosecond linearly-polarised near-infrared laser pulses acting on atomic target, we show that such plots are a valuable source of information on electronic rescattering that is sensitive to peak laser intensity and carrier-envelope phase. We pay a special attention to the effect of electronic spin configuration of particular atoms on the ionization process.

¹ S. Zhong, et al, Nat. Commun. 11, 5042 (2020)

² S. Grundmann, et al, Phys. Rev. Research 2, 033080 (2020)

³ S. Mikaelsson, et al , Nanophotonics 10, 117 (2020)

⁴ K. Henrichs, et al, Phys. Rev. A 98, 043405 (2018)

⁵ J. H. Thiede, et al, Phys. Rev. A 98, 031401 (2018)

⁶ D. K. Efimov, et al, Phys. Rev. A 100, 063408 (2019)

⁷ D. K. Efimov, et al, Phys. Rev. A 101, 063402 (2020)