Photoionisation of a helium atom involving autoionisation states coupled by a circularly polarised laser field

The rotating wave approximation is used to obtain parametric expressions for the resonance cross section for the atomic ground state ionisation by linearly polarised probe radiation in the vicinity of an autoionisation state coupled resonantly to another autoionisation state through circularly polarised laser radiation. Calculations are made for the 2s2p¹P and 2s3d¹D states of the helium atom. It is shown that the structure of the photoionisation cross-section spectrum formed for circularly polarised laser radiation differs qualitatively from the structure formed in the case of linear polarisation. The dependence of this structure on the intensity and frequency of laser radiation and the direction of polarisation of the probe radiation is studied.