The Study of “Coulomb Asymmetry” in an Elliptically Polarized Laser Field

Due to the effect of Coulomb potential, the angular distribution of electron ionized in an elliptically polarized field presents an asymmetric structure, which is called "Coulomb asymmetry". In this paper, we study how to modulate the asymmetric degree of the electron angular distribution by using a semi-classical simplified tunneling model. It is found that the asymmetric structure is easily affected by three parameters: the ionization potential, the laser ellipticity,and the laser wavelength. However, the laser intensity has little effect on the asymmetric structure. To explain these phenomena we have derived an analytical formula, which clearly demonstrates the relationship between the asymmetric degree and these parameters. Moreover, we find that in elliptically polarized laser field only those electrons that are released in a certain narrow window of initial field phase are greatly effected by the Coulomb potential and play the key role in the formation of asymmetric structure. This study provides some reference values in the development of attoclock technique, which can be used to probe the tunneling process.