Ultracold-atom quantum simulator for attosecond science

Abstract

A quantum simulator based on ultracold optically trapped atoms for simulating the physics of atoms and molecules in ultrashort intense laser fields is introduced. The slowing down by about 13 orders of magnitude allows to watch in slow motion the tunneling and recollision processes that form the heart of attosecond science. The extreme flexibility of the simulator promises a deeper understanding of strong-field physics, especially for many-body systems beyond the reach of classical computers. The quantum simulator can experimentally straightforwardly be realized and is shown to recover the ionization characteristics of atoms in the different regimes of laser-matter interaction.