Origin of ellipticity of high-order harmonics generated by a two-color laser field in the cross-polarized configuration

Recently several techniques demonstrated the production of elliptically polarized high harmonics. One of these techniques consists of the interaction in a noble gas of two-color laser beams having orthogonal linear polarizations. Here we present the theoretical explanation of such a result observed in Lambert et al. [Nat. Commun. 6, 6167 (2015)]. Numerical calculations based on the nonperturbative light-atom interaction theory reproduce well the experimental data. The degree of polarization is analyzed for different harmonic orders and found to be high. With the help of a simplified theoretical model it is shown that the degree of harmonic ellipticity depends mainly on the population of atomic state sublevels with different angular momentum projections.