Coulomb-potential effects in nonsequential double ionization under elliptical polarization

Using a semiclassical model, we evaluate the correlated electron momentum distribution from nonsequential double ionization (NSDI) of neon in an elliptically polarized laser field. The momentum distribution pattern exhibits a nontrivial change with the increase of the laser ellipticity, which can be understood as a combined effect of the extra laser electric field and the ionic Coulomb potential on the tunnel-ionized electron trajectory. Especially for large ellipticities (epsilon > 0.2), multiple return collision trajectory contributes dominantly to the NSDI yield and determines the correlated electron momentum distribution, revealing an indispensable role of ionic Coulomb potential in NSDI dynamics under elliptical polarization. Moreover, the nontrivial evolution of the correlated electron momentum distribution with the ellipticity revealed in our model should be testable by a realistic experiment. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.87.013431