Attosecond probing of instantaneous AC Stark shifts in helium atoms

Abstract

Based on numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation for either one or two active electrons, we propose a method for observing instantaneous level shifts in an oscillating strong infrared (IR) field in time, using a single tunable attosecond pulse to probe excited states of the perturbed atom. The ionization probability in the combined fields depends on both, the frequency of the attosecond pulse and the time delay between both pulses, since the IR field shifts excited energy levels into and out of resonance with the attosecond probe pulse. We show that this method (i) allows the detection of instantaneous atomic energy gaps with sub-laser-cycle time resolution and (ii) can be applied as an ultrafast gate for more complex processes such as non-sequential double-ionization.