Long-Range Coulomb Effect in Intense Laser-Driven Photoelectron Dynamics
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Updated: Mar 20, 2026

Direct Imaging of Laser-driven Ultrafast Molecular Rotation
Published on: February 4, 2017
Wei Quan1, XiaoLei Hao2, YongJu Chen1,3
1State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics and Center for Cold Atom Physics, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
Abstract:
In strong field atomic physics community, long-range Coulomb interaction has for a long time been overlooked and its significant role in intense laser-driven photoelectron dynamics eluded experimental observations. Here we report an experimental investigation of the effect of long-range Coulomb potential on the dynamics of near-zero-momentum photoelectrons produced in photo-ionization process of noble gas atoms in intense midinfrared laser pulses. By exploring the dependence of photoelectron distributions near zero momentum on laser intensity and wavelength, we unambiguously demonstrate that the long-range tail of the Coulomb potential (i.e., up to several hundreds atomic units) plays an important role in determining the photoelectron dynamics after the pulse ends.
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