Recovery of dynamic interference

Abstract

We develop general quantitative criteria for dynamic interference, a manifestation of double-slit interference in time which should be realizable with brilliant state-of-the-art high-frequency laser sources. Our analysis reveals that the observation of dynamic interference hinges upon maximizing the difference between the dynamic polarization of the initial bound and the final continuum state of the electron during the light pulse, while keeping depletion of the initial state small. Confirmed by numerical results, we predict that this is impossible for the hydrogen ground-state but feasible with excited states explicitly exemplified with the hydrogen 2p-state.