Role of XUV Photons in Atomic High-Order Above-Threshold Ionization Processes in IR+XUV Two-Color Laser Fields *

Abstract

We investigate the above-threshold ionization of an atom in a combined infrared (IR) and extreme ultraviolet (XUV) two-color laser field and focus on the role of XUV field in the high-order above-threshold ionization (HATI) process. It is demonstrated that, in stark contrast to previous studies, the XUV laser may play a significant role in atomic HATI process, and in particular, the XUV laser can accelerate the ionized electron in a quantized way during the collision between the electron and its parent ion. This process cannot be explained by the classical three-step model. Our results indicate that the previously well-established concept that HATI is an elastic recollision process is broken down.