Survival window for atomic tunneling ionization with elliptically polarized laser fields

Abstract

We find a fraction of atoms remain unionized after the laser pulse when the tunneled electrons are released in a certain window of initial field phase and transverse velocity. The survival window shifts with laser polarization ellipticity and its width varies with respect to laser intensity and atomic ionization potential. Neutral atom yield can be calculated by summing up tunneling probabilities in the window. Our theory can quantitatively reproduce the distribution of the survival yields vs laser ellipticity observed for helium in experiment. For other atom species with smaller ionization potential such as magnesium, our theory predicts a wider distribution than the strong-field approximation model while closer to the three-dimensional semiclassical electron ensemble simulations, indicating the important role of the Coulomb effects.