Laser-assisted ionization and spin-polarization of electrons in strong twisted and phase-controlled light fields

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While the electron dynamics in femto- or atto-second pulses has attracted much recent interest, most of these pulses can be tailored by their shape, subcycle phase and polarization, and can thus be described in terms of their plane wave decompositions. Less attention, in contrast, has been paid so far to shaped "twisted" fields which offer a novel route of tailoring light pulses. Photon beams with such properties are now generated routinely over a large range of energies and with quite high intensities. In this research project, we shall explore the "twistedness" of the photons fields and light beams as an additional degree of freedom in order to control the motion and spin-polarization of electrons, apart from the duration, envelope and phase control of the pulses. In particular, we will investigate the interaction of atoms (and later also molecules) with more or less strong twisted light fields, and where a phase-controlled, near-infrared field is applied to time-resolve the details in the electron emission. For this, the strong-field approximation will be extended and applied to describe the ionization of atoms and the spin-polarization of electrons in such short-pulse helical light fields.