Quantum electrodynamics in high harmonic generation: multi-trajectory Ehrenfest and exact quantum analysis

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: de-la-Peña, Sebastián, Neufeld, Ofer, Tzur, Matan Even, Cohen, Oren, Appel, Heiko, Rubio, Angel
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author de-la-Peña, Sebastián
Neufeld, Ofer
Tzur, Matan Even
Cohen, Oren
Appel, Heiko
Rubio, Angel
author_facet de-la-Peña, Sebastián
Neufeld, Ofer
Tzur, Matan Even
Cohen, Oren
Appel, Heiko
Rubio, Angel
contents High-harmonic generation (HHG) is a nonlinear process in which a material sample is irradiated by intense laser pulses, causing the emission of high harmonics of the incident light. HHG has historically been explained by theories employing a classical electromagnetic field, successfully capturing its spectral and temporal characteristics. However, recent research indicates that quantum-optical effects naturally exist, or can be artificially induced, in HHG. Even though the fundamental equations of motion for quantum electrodynamics (QED) are well-known, a unifying framework for solving them to explore HHG is missing. So far, numerical solutions employed a wide range of basis-sets and untested approximations. Based on methods originally developed for cavity polaritonics, here we formulate a numerically accurate QED model consisting of a single active electron and a single quantized photon mode. Our framework can in principle be extended to higher electronic dimensions and multiple photon modes to be employed in ab initio codes. We employ it as a model of an atom interacting with a photon mode and predict a characteristic minimum structure in the HHG yield vs. phase-squeezing. We find that this phenomenon, which can be used for novel ultrafast quantum spectroscopies, is partially captured by a multi-trajectory Ehrenfest dynamics approach, with the exact minima position sensitive to the level of theory. On the one hand, this motivates using multi-trajectory approaches as an alternative for costly exact calculations. On the other hand, it suggests an inherent limitation of the multi-trajectory formalism, indicating the presence of entanglement. Our work creates a road-map for a universal formalism of QED-HHG that can be employed for benchmarking approximate theories, predicting novel phenomena for advancing quantum applications, and for the measurements of entanglement and entropy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_13614
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantum electrodynamics in high harmonic generation: multi-trajectory Ehrenfest and exact quantum analysis
de-la-Peña, Sebastián
Neufeld, Ofer
Tzur, Matan Even
Cohen, Oren
Appel, Heiko
Rubio, Angel
Optics
High-harmonic generation (HHG) is a nonlinear process in which a material sample is irradiated by intense laser pulses, causing the emission of high harmonics of the incident light. HHG has historically been explained by theories employing a classical electromagnetic field, successfully capturing its spectral and temporal characteristics. However, recent research indicates that quantum-optical effects naturally exist, or can be artificially induced, in HHG. Even though the fundamental equations of motion for quantum electrodynamics (QED) are well-known, a unifying framework for solving them to explore HHG is missing. So far, numerical solutions employed a wide range of basis-sets and untested approximations. Based on methods originally developed for cavity polaritonics, here we formulate a numerically accurate QED model consisting of a single active electron and a single quantized photon mode. Our framework can in principle be extended to higher electronic dimensions and multiple photon modes to be employed in ab initio codes. We employ it as a model of an atom interacting with a photon mode and predict a characteristic minimum structure in the HHG yield vs. phase-squeezing. We find that this phenomenon, which can be used for novel ultrafast quantum spectroscopies, is partially captured by a multi-trajectory Ehrenfest dynamics approach, with the exact minima position sensitive to the level of theory. On the one hand, this motivates using multi-trajectory approaches as an alternative for costly exact calculations. On the other hand, it suggests an inherent limitation of the multi-trajectory formalism, indicating the presence of entanglement. Our work creates a road-map for a universal formalism of QED-HHG that can be employed for benchmarking approximate theories, predicting novel phenomena for advancing quantum applications, and for the measurements of entanglement and entropy.
title Quantum electrodynamics in high harmonic generation: multi-trajectory Ehrenfest and exact quantum analysis
topic Optics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.13614