Population Oscillations in Excited Argon Atoms Initiated by Attosecond Pulses

Abstract: This project aims to study the process of electron excitation by a light pulse, a process at the core of many important contemporary and possible future devices. Data from an experiment where the electron dynamics is probed with attosecond laser pulses are analyzed in order to gain insight on the rapid population oscillations within the excited atomic system and simulations are constructed with the goal of mimicking structures found in the experimental data. The results imply that the effect of a third state, which is reached by interaction with an incident pulse, on the population oscillations might explain the experimentally observed structures. Some control might be possible to exempt on the composition of the superposition state of the electron, by varying the time when the pulse is incident on the atom.