LASER EFFECTS IN PHOTOIONIZATION - NUMERICAL-SOLUTION OF COUPLED EQUATIONS FOR A 3-DIMENSIONAL COULOMB POTENTIAL

The time-dependent Schr6dinger equation was solved numerically as a set of coupled equations for an electron moving in three spatial dimensions, bound initially (t ≤ 0) by a Coulomb potential, and acted on by a linearly polarized, single-frequency, classical electromagnetic field that is turned on abruptly at t = 0. The laser field was assumed to be spatially homogeneous, and magnetic interactions between the laser beam and the electron were ignored. Characteristic photoionization times were determined for a wide range of scaled laser intensities and scaled laser frequencies and for a range of electron initial-state quantum numbers nim. Results are compared with those obtained previously [Phys. Rev. A 40, 683 (1989)] for a one-dimensional 6 potential. © 1990 Optical Society of America.