Laser-stabilized ionizing transitions
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Stabilizing atoms exposed to intense laser fields has been a central topic in atomic physics for decades, inspiring several theoretical frameworks that describe the phenomenon under different resonance conditions and coupling regimes. Here, we theoretically investigate an ionizing electronic transition driven by a resonant pump field, in contrast to Kramers–Henneberger atoms, which are stabilized by non-perturbative, non-resonant laser pulses. We show that, above a critical pump intensity, the drive creates a metastable electronic bound state emerging from the continuum, which decays via two-photon ionization. We calculate the resulting resonant fluorescence spectrum and find a qualitatively different structure from the familiar Mollow triplet associated with bound-to-bound transitions. This fluorescence provides a time-resolved probe of the population in the metastable state. In analogy to how the AC Stark shift is a semiclassical counterpart of the single-photon Rabi splitting observed in optical cavities, the phenomenon we describe is best understood as a semiclassical analog of recently observed excitons bound by a single cavity photon.
Source: Optica
Authors: Erika Cortese, Simone De Liberato
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,208
OpenAlex ID: W4416992362