Frankfurt 2006 – scientific programme

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A: Atomphysik

A 16: Wechselwirkung mit starken Laserpulsen I

A 16.5: Talk

Thursday, March 16, 2006, 11:40–11:55, H6

High-harmonic generation in rare-gas atoms — •Peter Koval, Dieter Bauer, and Christoph Keitel — Max-Planck Institut for Nuclear Physics, Saupfercheckweg 1, 69117 Heidelberg

There are two alternatives to describe non-relativistic many-electron atoms within ab initio quantum mechanics: Scrödinger equation or density-functional theory. The wavefunctions of many-electron atoms are extremely complex objects. Their determination suffers from the exponential growth of the computational cost with the particle number (exponential wall) [1].

In contrast, density-functional theory remains computationall relatively inexpensive. It can deal with much more complex atoms, although the effective potential of electron–electron interaction has to be approximated in practice. In the framework of time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT), effective potentials have been developed and tested for several applications such as the simulation of harmonic spectra, the computation of excitation energies and transport properties. However, the development of accurate effective potentials is far from complete [2].

In this contribution, we study the influence of electron–electron interaction on the high-order harmonic generation in rare-gas atoms. Aiming to improve the effective potentials within TDDFT, we present the spectra of the emitted harmonics. Predictions of single-active-electron approximation and TDDFT with exchange-only effective potentials will be consistently compared.

[1] W. Kohn, Rev. Mod. Phys. 71, 1253-1266 (1999).

[2] K. Burke, etal, J. Chem. Phys. 123, 062206 (2005).