Photoelectron spectra with Qprop and t-SURFF

Abstract

Calculating strong-field, momentum-resolved photoelectron spectra (PES) from numerical solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation (TDSE) is a very demanding task due to the large spatial excursions and drifts of electrons in intense laser fields. The time-dependent surface flux (t-SURFF) method for the calculation of PES [L. Tao, A. Scrinzi, New Journal of Physics 14, 013021 (2012)] allows to keep the numerical grid much smaller than the space over which the wavefunction would be spread at the end of the laser pulse. We present an implementation of the t-SURFF method in the well established TDSE-solver Qprop [D. Bauer, P. Koval, Comput. Phys. Commun. 174, 396 (2006)]. Qprop efficiently propagates wavefunctions for single-active electron systems with spherically symmetric binding potentials in classical, linearly (along $z$) or elliptically (in the $xy$-plane) polarized laser fields in dipole approximation. Its combination with t-SURFF makes the simulation of PES feasible in cases where it is just too expensive to keep the entire wavefunction on the numerical grid, e.g., in the long-wavelength or long-pulse regime.