Lippmann-Schwinger description of multiphoton ionization

Abstract

We outline a formalism and develop a computational procedure to treat the process of multiphoton ionization (MPI) of atomic targets in strong laser fields. We treat the MPI process nonperturbatively as a decay phenomenon by solving a coupled set of the integral Lippmann-Schwinger equations. As basic building blocks of the theory we use a complete set of field-free atomic states, discrete and continuous. This approach should enable us to provide both the total and differential cross-sections of MPI of atoms with one or two electrons. As an illustration, we apply the proposed procedure to a simple model of MPI from a square well potential and to the hydrogen atom.