Directional loss of contrast in temporal double-slit interferometry
Phys. Rev. A 113, 043126 – Published 27 April, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/hnw2-8f1z
Abstract
Attosecond streaking camera is an ex situ technique in which a linearly polarized (LP) XUV attopulse produces an electron wavepacket by photoionization in the presence of an IR femtopulse. By moving the two synchronous oppositely circularly polarized XUV pulses (that make the ionizing LP pulse) apart in time, we propose an attosecond double-slit streak camera scheme to see information loss in polarization-dependent two-slit phenomena. Such streaking interferogram is then composed of several Feynman's thought experiments in time domain, in which electrons are affected by the IR pulse as they exit the two attoslits upon XUV ionization processes to form Archimedean spiral patterns. As a first proof-of-principle, when the IR femtofield and first XUV attopulse are synchronous, a loss of contrast through an effective dephasing is seen in the simulated momentum and energy distributions of the photoelectron. It is shown that the contrast between bright and dark interference fringes diminishes predominantly along the IR-field polarization axis and is sensitive to the IR-field waveform. Falling in the regime of linear optics, our predictions are based on solutions of full-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) and analyzed using perturbation theory, strong-field approximation, and TDSE calculations for the populated ionization channels. Our which-time information scheme provides further confirmation of the wave-particle duality.
