Photoelectron circular dichroism with Lissajous-type bichromatic fields: One- vs two-photon ionization of chiral molecules

Abstract

Angular distribution of photoelectrons released by the ionization of randomly-oriented molecules with two laser fields of carrier frequencies $\omega$ and $2\omega$, which are linearly polarized in two mutually-orthogonal directions, is analyzed in the perturbation limit for the case of one- vs two-photon ionization process. In particular, we focus on the recently predicted [Ph.V. Demekhin {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{121}, 253201 (2018)] forward-backward asymmetry in the photoelectron emission, which is induced by the interference of two fields and depends on the external relative phase between them. The present theoretical analysis proves a chiral origin of the effect and suggests that a molecule introduces an additional internal relative phase between two ionizing fields.