In order to study ultracold charge-transfer processes in hybrid atom-ion traps, we have mapped out the potential energy curves and molecular parameters for several low lying states of the Rb, Yb$^+$ system. We employ both a multi-reference configurat
ion interaction (MRCI) and a full configuration interaction (FCI) approach. Turning points, crossing points, potential minima and spectroscopic molecular constants are obtained for the lowest five molecular states. Long-range parameters, including the dispersion coefficients are estimated from our {it ab initio} data. The separated-atom ionization potentials and atomic polarizability of the ytterbium atom ($alpha_d=128.4$ atomic units) are in good agreement with experiment and previous calculations. We present some dynamical calculations for (adiabatic) scattering lengths for the two lowest (Yb,Rb$^+$) channels that were carried out in our work. However, we find that the pseudo potential approximation is rather limited in validity, and only applies to nK temperatures. The adiabatic scattering lengths for both the triplet and singlet channels indicate that both are large and negative in the FCI approximation.
We investigate the effect of dynamic electron correlation on high-harmonic generation in helium atoms using intense visible light (lambda=390nm). Two complementary approaches are used which account for correlation in an approximate manner: time-depen
dent density-functional theory and a single-active-electron model. For intensities I~10^{14} W/cm^2, the theories are in remarkably good agreement for the dynamic polarization and harmonic spectrum. This is attributed to a low-frequency collective mode together with a high-frequency single-electron response due to the nuclear singularity, both of which dominate electron correlation effects. A time-frequency analysis is used to study the timing and emission spectrum of attosecond bursts of light. For short pulses, we find a secondary maximum below the classical cut-off. The imprint of the carrier-envelope-phase, for the time-integrated spectral density appears at frequencies above the high-frequency drop-off, consistent with previous studies in the infrared lambda~800nm.
We present a simple quantum mechanical model to describe Coulomb explosion of H$_2^+$ by short, intense, infrared laser pulses. The model is based on the length gauge version of the molecular strong-field approximation and is valid for pulses shorter
than 50 fs where the process of dissociation prior to ionization is negligible. The results are compared with recent experimental results for the proton energy spectrum [I. Ben-Itzhak et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 073002 (2005), B. D. Esry et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 013003 (2006)]. The predictions of the model reproduce the profile of the spectrum although the peak energy is slightly lower than the observations. For comparison, we also present results obtained by two different tunneling models for this process.
