Identifying the complexity of the holographic structures in strong field ionization

Abstract

Abstract We present numerical investigations of the strong-field attosecond photoelectron holography by analyzing the holographic interference structures in the two-dimensional photoelectron momentum distribution (PMD) in hydrogen atom target induced by a strong infrared laser pulse. The PMDs are calculated by solving the full-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation. The effect of the number of optical cycles on the PMD is considered and analyzed. We show how the complex interference patterns are formed from a single-cycle pulse to multi-cycle pulses. Furthermore, snapshots of the PMD during the time evolution are presented for a single-cycle pulse in order to track the formation of the so-called fish-bone like holographic structure. The spider- and fan-like holographic structures are also identified and investigated. We found that the fan-like structure could only be identified clearly for pulses with three or more optical cycles and its symmetry depends closely on the number of optical cycles. In addition, we found that the intensity and wavelength of the laser pulse affect the density of interference fringes in the holographic patterns. We show that the longer the wavelength, the more the holographic structures are confined to the polarization axis.