FLOQUET ANALYSIS OF WAVE-FUNCTIONS OF ATOMS INTERACTING WITH A SHORT,STRONG LASER-PULSE

A method is developed to analyse the wavefunctions of one-electron ato ms interacting with a short and strong laser pulse. It is shown that t he occupation probability density of the degenerate subspaces to the s ame quasienergy of the instantaneous Floquet functions can be determin ed even if the system contains a continuum. The method is demonstrated by two calculations, one involving bound states only and one using a one-dimensional model which exhibits the full continuum structure.