Strong-field quantum control in the extreme ultraviolet using pulse shaping
Abstract
Tailored light-matter interactions in the strong coupling regime enable the manipulation and control of quantum systems with up to unit efficiency, with applications ranging from quantum information to photochemistry. While strong light-matter interactions are readily induced at the valence electron level using long-wavelength radiation, comparable phenomena have been only recently observed with short wavelengths, accessing highly-excited multi-electron and inner-shell electron states. However, the quantum control of strong-field processes at short wavelengths has not been possible, so far, due to the lack of pulse shaping technologies in the extreme ultraviolet (XUV) and X-ray domain. Here, exploiting pulse shaping of the seeded free-electron laser (FEL) FERMI, we demonstrate the strong-field quantum control of ultrafast Rabi dynamics in helium atoms with high fidelity. Our approach unravels a strong dressing of the ionization continuum, otherwise elusive to experimental observables. The latter is exploited to achieve control of the total ionization rate, with prospective applications in many XUV and soft X-ray experiments. Leveraging recent advances in intense few-femtosecond to attosecond XUV to soft X-ray light sources, our results open an avenue to the efficient manipulation and selective control of core electron processes and electron correlation phenomena in real time.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2403.01835,
title = {Strong-field quantum control in the extreme ultraviolet using pulse shaping},
author = {Fabian Richter and Ulf Saalmann and Enrico Allaria and Matthias Wollenhaupt and Benedetto Ardini and Alexander Brynes and Carlo Callegari and Giulio Cerullo and Miltcho Danailov and Alexander Demidovich and Katrin Dulitz and Raimund Feifel and Michele Di Fraia and Sarang Dev Ganeshamandiram and Luca Giannessi and Nicolai Gölz and Sebastian Hartweg and Bernd von Issendorff and Tim Laarmann and Friedemann Landmesser and Yilin Li and Michele Manfredda and Cristian Manzoni and Moritz Michelbach and Arne Morlok and Marcel Mudrich and Aaron Ngai and Ivaylo Nikolov and Nitish Pal and Fabian Pannek and Giuseppe Penco and Oksana Plekan and Kevin C. Prince and Giuseppe Sansone and Alberto Simoncig and Frank Stienkemeier and Richard James Squibb and Peter Susnjar and Mauro Trovo and Daniel Uhl and Brendan Wouterlood and Marco Zangrando and Lukas Bruder},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.01835},
year = {2025}
}