Absorption spectroscopy of strongly perturbed bound-continuum transitions

Abstract

Absorption properties of a system consisting of two autoionizing states coupled strongly either by internal interactions or by external fields are investigated. The autoionizing states may themselves correspond to those induced by laser fields as in resonant multiphoton ionization. The analysis is based on the density matrices and incoherent processes like spontaneous emission and radiative recombination are included. Optical susceptibilities exist in a number of special cases for autoionizing transitions. Exact results for such optical susceptibilities are obtained. Explicit numerical results for susceptibilities, corresponding traditionally to strong-field inverse Raman effect, are given with a view to recent work on dc-field-coupled autoionizing states and on laser-induced autoionization. The behavior of both absorptive and dispersive parts is discussed for a range of parameters.