Coulomb-corrected quantum trajectories in strong-field ionization

Nonperturbative analytical quantum treatments of strong-field laser-atom interaction are essentially based on the assumption that binding forces are negligible once the electron is emitted because the further dynamics are considered as being dominated by the laser field. In this work we introduce a Coulomb-corrected strong-field theory of photoionization based on quantum trajectories and show how binding forces lead to strong qualitative effects in above-threshold ionization of atoms. We examine the theory by comparing experimental data for elliptically polarized laser fields and results from the ab initio solution of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation with our theoretical predictions. The comparison shows good quantitative agreement with the ab initio results and reasonable agreement with the data. For ground states with nonzero angular momentum we show a strong circular dichroism in the high-energy (rescattering) part of photoelectron spectra.