High-order optical harmonic generation as a process of single atom interaction with sub-relativistic single-and multicolor laser fields AIP Conf. Proc. 1464, 265 (2012) We present the first implementation of the ab initio many-body Green's function method, algebraic diagrammatic construction (ADC), in the B-spline single-electron basis. B-spline versions of the first order [ADC(1)] and second order [ADC (2)] schemes for the polarization propagator are developed and applied to the ab initio calculation of static (photoionization cross-sections) and dynamic (highorder harmonic generation spectra) quantities. We show that the cross-section features that pose a challenge for the Gaussian basis calculations, such as Cooper minima and high-energy tails, are found to be reproduced by the B-spline ADC in a very good agreement with the experiment. We also present the first dynamic B-spline ADC results, showing that the effect of the Cooper minimum on the high-order harmonic generation spectrum of Ar is correctly predicted by the time-dependent ADC calculation in the B-spline basis. The present development paves the way for the application of the B-spline ADC to both energy-and time-resolved theoretical studies of many-electron phenomena in atoms, molecules, and clusters.

Here we present a fully ab initio study of the high-order harmonic generation (HHG) spectrum of aligned CO molecules. The calculations have been performed by using the molecular time-dependent (TD) B-spline algebraic diagrammatic construction (ADC) method. We quantitatively study how the sub-cycle laser-driven multi-channel dynamics, as reflected in the position of the dynamical minimum in the HHG spectrum, is affected by the full inclusion of both correlation-driven and laser-driven dipole interchannel couplings. We calculate channel-resolved spectral intensities as well as the phase differences between contributions of the different ionization-recombination channels to the total HHG spectrum. Our results show that electron correlation effectively controls the relative contributions of the different channels to the total HHG spectrum, leading to the opening of the new ones (1Π, 1Σ), previously disregarded for the aligned molecular setup. We conclude that inclusion of many-electron effects into the theoretical interpretation of molecular HHG spectra is essential in order to correctly extract ultrafast electron dynamics using HHG spectroscopy.

In [K. Gokhberg, V. Vysotskiy, L. S. Cederbaum, L. Storchi, F. Tarantelli, and V. Averbukh, J. Chem. Phys. 130, 064104 (2009)] we introduced a new L(2) ab initio method for the calculation of total molecular photoionization cross-sections. The method is based on the ab initio description of discretized photoionized molecular states within the many-electron Green's function approach, known as algebraic diagrammatic construction (ADC), and on the application of Stieltjes-Chebyshev moment theory to Lanczos pseudospectra of the ADC electronic Hamiltonian. Here we establish the accuracy of the new technique by comparing the ADC-Lanczos-Stieltjes cross-sections in the valence ionization region to the experimental ones for a series of eight molecules of first row elements: HF, NH3, H2O, CO2, H2CO, CH4, C2H2, and C2H4. We find that the use of the second-order ADC technique [ADC(2)] that includes double electronic excitations leads to a substantial systematic improvement over the first-order method [ADC(1)] and to a good agreement with experiment for photon energies below 80 eV. The use of extended second-order ADC theory [ADC(2)x] leads to a smaller further improvement. Above 80 eV photon energy all three methods lead to significant deviations from the experimental values which we attribute to the use of Gaussian single-electron bases. Our calculations show that the ADC(2)-Lanczos-Stieltjes technique is a reliable and efficient ab initio tool for theoretical prediction of total molecular photo-ionization cross-sections in the valence region.

The excited state non-adiabatic dynamics of polyatomic molecules, leading to the coupling of structural and electronic dynamics, is a fundamentally important yet challenging problem for both experiment and theory. Ongoing developments in ultrafast extreme vacuum ultraviolet (XUV) and soft X-ray sources present new probes of coupled electronic-structural dynamics because of their novel and desirable characteristics. As one example, inner-shell spectroscopy offers localized, atom-specific probes of evolving electronic structure and bonding (via chemical shifts). In this work, we present the first on-the-fly ultrafast X-ray time-resolved absorption spectrum simulations of excited state wavepacket dynamics: photo-excited ethylene. This was achieved by coupling the ab initio multiple spawning (AIMS) method, employing on-the-fly dynamics simulations, with high-level algebraic diagrammatic construction (ADC) X-ray absorption cross-section calculations. Using the excited state dynamics of ethylene as a test case, we assessed the ability of X-ray absorption spectroscopy to project out the electronic character of complex wavepacket dynamics, and evaluated the sensitivity of the calculated spectra to large amplitude nuclear motion. In particular, we demonstrate the pronounced sensitivity of the pre-edge region of the X-ray absorption spectrum to the electronic and structural evolution of the excited-state wavepacket. We conclude that ultrafast time-resolved X-ray absorption spectroscopy may become a powerful tool in the interrogation of excited state non-adiabatic molecular dynamics.