Exterior complex scaling as a perfect absorber in time-dependent problems

Abstract

It is shown that exterior complex scaling provides for complete absorption of outgoing flux in numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation with strong infrared fields. This is demonstrated by computing high harmonic spectra and wave-function overlaps with the exact solution for a one-dimensional model system and by three-dimensional calculations for the H atom and a Ne atom model. We lay out the key ingredients for correct implementation and identify criteria for efficient discretization.