The envelope Hamiltonian for electron interaction with ultrashort pulses

For ultrashort VUV pulses with a pulse length comparable to the orbital time of the bound electrons they couple to, we propose a simplified envelope Hamiltonian. It is based on the Kramers–Henneberger representation in connection with a Floquet expansion of the strong-field dynamics but keeps the time dependence of the pulse envelope explicit. Thereby, the envelope Hamiltonian captures the essence of the physics—light-induced shifts of bound states, single-photon absorption, and non-adiabatic electronic transitions. It delivers quantitatively accurate ionization dynamics and allows for a physical insight into the processes occurring. Its minimal requirements for construction in terms of laser parameters make it ideally suited for a large class of atomic and molecular problems. (paper)