Two-photon ionization of helium studied with the multiconfigurational time-dependent Hartree-Fock method

The multiconfigurational time-dependent Hartree-Fock method (MCTDHF) is applied for simulations of the two-photon ionization of helium. We present results for the single and double ionizations from the ground state for photon energies in the nonsequential regime and compare them to direct solutions of the Schrodinger equation using the time-dependent (full) configuration interaction (TDCI) method. We find that the single ionization is accurately reproduced by MCTDHF, whereas the double ionization results correctly capture the main trends of TDCI. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3553176]