Photoelectron sidebands induced by a chirped laser field for shot-by-shot temporal characterization of FEL pulses

We theoretically investigate the laser-assisted photoionization of He by an extreme ultra violet (XUV) pulse in the presence of a linearly chirped intense laser pulse by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation within the single-active-electron approximation. Analysis based on the time-dependent perturbation theory is also carried out to provide more physical insights. A new scheme is shown to be capable of extracting the arrival time of an XUV free-electron laser (FEL) pulse relative to an external laser pulse as well as the XUV pulse duration from the photoelectron sidebands resulting from XUV ionization in the presence of a chirped laser pulse. This scheme is independent of the energy fluctuation and the timing jittering of the FEL pulse. Therefore it can be implemented in a non-invasive way to characterize FEL pulses on a shot-by-shot basis in time-resolved spectroscopy. (paper)