No Arabic abstract
We investigate the multiphoton ionization of hydrogen driven by a strong bichromatic microwave field. In a regime where classical and quantum simulations agree, periodic orbit analysis captures the mechanism: Through the linear stability of periodic orbits we match qualitatively the variation of experimental ionization rates with control parameters such as the amplitudes of the two modes of the field or their relative phases. Moreover, we discuss an empirical formula which reproduces quantum simulations to a high degree of accuracy. This quantitative agreement shows the mechanism by which short periodic orbits organize the dynamics in multiphoton ionization. We also analyze the effect of longer pulse durations. Finally we compare our results with those based on the peak amplitude rule. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses are implemented for different mode locked fields. In parameter space, the localization of the period doubling and halving allows one to predict the set of parameters (amplitudes and phase lag) where ionization occurs.
We discuss the influence of periodic orbits on the dissociation of a model diatomic molecule driven by a strong bichromatic laser fields. Through the stability of periodic orbits we analyze the dissociation probability when parameters like the two amplitudes and the phase lag between the laser fields, are varied. We find that qualitative features of dissociation can be reproduced by considering a small set of short periodic orbits. The good agreement with direct simulations demonstrates the importance of bifurcations of short periodic orbits in the dissociation dynamics of diatomic molecules.
The multiphoton ionization of hydrogen by a strong bichromatic microwave field is a complex process prototypical for atomic control research. Periodic orbit analysis captures this complexity: Through the stability of periodic orbits we can match qualitatively the variation of experimental ionization rates with a control parameter, the relative phase between the two modes of the field. Moreover, an empirical formula reproduces quantum simulations to a high degree of accuracy. This quantitative agreement shows how short periodic orbits organize the dynamics in multiphoton ionization.
A systematic study of closed classical orbits of the hydrogen atom in crossed electric and magnetic fields is presented. We develop a local bifurcation theory for closed orbits which is analogous to the well-known bifurcation theory for periodic orbits and allows identifying the generic closed-orbit bifurcations of codimension one. Several bifurcation scenarios are described in detail. They are shown to have as their constituents the generic codimension-one bifurcations, which combine into a rich variety of complicated scenarios. We propose heuristic criteria for a classification of closed orbits that can serve to systematize the complex set of orbits.
Closed-orbit theory provides a general approach to the semiclassical description of photo-absorption spectra of arbitrary atoms in external fields, the simplest of which is the hydrogen atom in an electric field. Yet, despite its apparent simplicity, a semiclassical quantization of this system by means of closed-orbit theory has not been achieved so far. It is the aim of this paper to close that gap. We first present a detailed analytic study of the closed classical orbits and their bifurcations. We then derive a simple form of the uniform semiclassical approximation for the bifurcations that is suitable for an inclusion into a closed-orbit summation. By means of a generalized version of the semiclassical quantization by harmonic inversion, we succeed in calculating high-quality semiclassical spectra for the hydrogen atom in an electric field.
We discuss various bifurcation problems in which two isolated periodic orbits exchange periodic ``bridge orbit(s) between two successive bifurcations. We propose normal forms which locally describe the corresponding fixed point scenarios on the Poincare surface of section. Uniform approximations for the density of states for an integrable Hamiltonian system with two degrees of freedom are derived and successfully reproduce the numerical quantum-mechanical results.