Probing Electronic Motion and Core Potential by Coulomb-reshaped Terahertz Radiation

Abstract

The nature of electronic motion and structural information of atoms and molecules is encoded into strong-field induced radiations ranging from terahertz (THz) to extreme ultraviolet wavelength. The dependence of THz yields in bi-chromatic laser fields on ellipticity and interpulse phase delay were experimentally measured, and the trajectory calculations establish the link between the THz emission and the motion of the photoelectron wave packet. The interaction between the photoelectron and parent core transforms from soft collision to recollision as the laser field tuned from elliptical to linear polarization, which can be reflected in THz emission. The soft collision is found to be more effective in reconstructing electron dynamics through THz polarization, which enables to construct the effective core potential of the generating medium with the Coulomb-reshaped THz radiation in an elliptically polarized laser field. Our work allows designing innovative all-optical THz measurements of electronic and structural dynamics.