Conservation of Torus-knot Angular Momentum in High-order Harmonic Generation

Emilio Pisanty, Laura Rego, Julio San Román, Antonio Picón, Kevin M. Dorney, Henry C. Kapteyn, Margaret M. Murnane, Luis Plaja, Maciej Lewenstein, and Carlos Hernández-García
Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 203201 – Published 22 May 2019

Abstract

High-order harmonic generation stands as a unique nonlinear optical up-conversion process, mediated by a laser-driven electron recollision mechanism, which has been shown to conserve energy, linear momentum, and spin and orbital angular momentum. Here, we present theoretical simulations that demonstrate that this process also conserves a mixture of the latter, the torus-knot angular momentum Jγ, by producing high-order harmonics with driving pulses that are invariant under coordinated rotations. We demonstrate that the charge Jγ of the emitted harmonics scales linearly with the harmonic order, and that this conservation law is imprinted onto the polarization distribution of the emitted spiral of attosecond pulses. We also demonstrate how the nonperturbative physics of high-order harmonic generation affect the torus-knot angular momentum of the harmonics, and we show that this configuration harnesses the spin selection rules to channel the full yield of each harmonic into a single mode of controllable orbital angular momentum.

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  • Received 22 October 2018
  • Corrected 20 June 2019
  • Corrected 25 July 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.203201

© 2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Corrections

20 June 2019

Correction: Extra characters were inserted inadvertently in the DOI string for Ref. [33] during the final production stage and have been removed, enabling proper access.

25 July 2019

Second Correction: The previously published Figure 4 was processed improperly during the production cycle for the PDF version and its rendition has been corrected.

Authors & Affiliations

Emilio Pisanty1,*, Laura Rego2, Julio San Román2, Antonio Picón1,3, Kevin M. Dorney4, Henry C. Kapteyn4, Margaret M. Murnane4, Luis Plaja2, Maciej Lewenstein1,5, and Carlos Hernández-García2

  • 1ICFO—Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Av. Carl Friedrich Gauss 3, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain
  • 2Grupo de Investigación en Aplicaciones del Láser y Fotónica, Departamento de Física Aplicada, University of Salamanca, E-37008, Salamanca, Spain
  • 3Departamento de Química, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain
  • 4JILA, Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA
  • 5ICREA, Passeig de Lluís Companys, 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain

  • *Corresponding author. emilio.pisanty@icfo.eu

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Issue

Vol. 122, Iss. 20 — 24 May 2019

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