A new approach to solving the time-dependent Schrodinger for an atom in a radiation field

Abstract

The time-dependent Schrodinger for an atom in a radiation field has a very special form, at least within the dipole approximation: The time-dependence of the Hamiltonian is contained entirely in a c-number which appears as a factor in the interaction, V(t), of the atom with the radiation field. In the velocity gauge this factor is the vector potential, A(t), of the field — we have V(t)= − (e/µc)A (t) • p, where e, µ, and p are the charge, reduced mass, and canonical momentum (in the center of mass frame) of the electron — while in the length gauge this factor is the electric field vector F(t) — we have V(t) = –eF(t) • x, where x is the position coordinate. To our knowledge, this factorization property has not been fully exploited in previous approaches to solving the timedependent Schrodinger equation1. As we show here, in an application to multiphoton ionization of atomic hydrogen, it is an extremely useful property; and although at first sight it would seem to be a unique feature of the atom-radiation system, this is not so, for, as Solov’ev2 has pointed out, the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for colliding atoms or ions can be transformed into a form in which a scaled time-dependence also appears only in c-number factors of the (transformed) interactions.