Orbital-angular-momentum partition in hydrogen photoionization by a monochromatic vortex beam

Abstract

Understanding how optical orbital angular momentum (OAM) is transferred to matter requires treating recoil and translational motion alongside the internal electronic dynamics. We develop a center-of-mass-resolved theory of one-photon ionization of hydrogen by a monochromatic Laguerre--Gaussian beam and show that the Bessel-vortex photoelectron predicted in fixed-target models is a preparation-dependent limit. For a sharply defined atomic center-of-mass momentum, the recoil records the photon-cone azimuth, and tracing over it generally destroys the coherence required for a pure electron vortex. In the small-transverse-retardation regime, the optical OAM is transferred predominantly to the center-of-mass motion and hence, in the laboratory frame, to the proton. Finite-retardation corrections redistribute angular momentum between center-of-mass and relative motion, while an additional correlation contribution to the electron and proton angular momenta can be tuned through the spatial uncertainty of the atomic center of mass. These results reveal atomic recoil as a key element of OAM transfer in photoionization.