Controlling laser-dressed resonance line shape using attosecond extreme-ultraviolet pulse with a spectral minimum

Abstract

High-harmonic generation from a gas target exhibits sharp spectral features and rapid phase variation near the Cooper minimum. By applying spectral filtering, shaped isolated attosecond pulses can be generated where the pulse is split into two in the time domain. Using such shaped extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) pulses, we theoretically study attosecond transient absorption (ATA) spectra of helium 2 s 2 p autoionizing state which is resonantly coupled to the 2 s 2 dark state by a time-delayed infrared laser. Our simulations show that the asymmetric 2 s 2 p Fano line shape can be readily tuned into symmetric Lorentzian within the time delay of a few tens of attoseconds. Such efficient control is due to the destructive interference in the generation of the 2 s 2 p state when it is excited by a strongly shaped XUV pulse. This is to be compared to prior experiments where tuning the line shape of a Fano resonance would take tens of femtoseconds. We also show that the predicted ATA spectral line shape can be observed experimentally after propagation in a gas medium. Our results suggest that strongly shaped attosecond XUV pulses offer the opportunity for controlling and probing fine features of narrow resonances on the few-ten attoseconds timescale.