Semiclassical Electrodynamics of Bound Systems in Intense Fields

Abstract

A general approximation method is developed for the treatment of bound quantum systems in the presence of an intense external electromagnetic field of long wavelength. The method is based upon a unitary transformation which approximately removes the electromagnetic field from the problem. The accuracy of the technique increases with the number of photons involved in any given process; and in the case of large photon number, the results have a simple, concise form resembling first-order perturbation theory. It is possible to handle intense-field problems with small numbers of photons also, but then the formalism takes on a complexity analogous to the corresponding perturbation expressions for the same number of photons. The theory is extended to the case where two electromagnetic field modes are present, one or both of which may be intense. Bound-bound transitions in a hydrogenlike atom are calculated as an illustration of the application of the method. One of the explicit nonlinear effects to appear is an intensity-dependent deviation of the transition probability behavior from $I^n$ for $n$-photon transitions, where $I$ is the field intensity. It is demonstrated that intensity effects are much more probable with bound electrons than with free electrons.