Schild A, Gross EKU. Exact Single-Electron Approach to the Dynamics of Molecules in Strong Laser Fields.
PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 2017;
118:163202. [PMID:
28474937 DOI:
10.1103/physrevlett.118.163202]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
We present an exact single-electron picture that describes the correlated electron dynamics in strong laser fields. Our approach is based on the factorization of the electronic wave function as a product of a marginal and a conditional amplitude. The marginal amplitude, which depends only on one electronic coordinate and yields the exact one-electron density and current density, obeys a time-dependent Schrödinger equation with an effective time-dependent potential. The exact equations are used to derive an approximation that is a step towards general and feasible ab initio single-electron calculations for molecules. The derivation also sheds new light on the usual interpretation of the single-active electron approximation. From the study of model systems, we find that the exact and approximate single-electron potentials for processes with negligible two-electron ionization lead to qualitatively similar dynamics, but that the ionization barrier in the exact single-electron potential may be explicitly time dependent.
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