New features of interaction of atomic and molecular systems with intense ultrashort laser pulses

New important physics of laser – atom interaction is found out and discussed in the case of ultrashort duration of lowfrequency laser pulses. Several types of interference effects are observed during strong‐field atomic ionization and further rescattering and are found to arise due to wide momentum and angular distribution of the electron formed in the continuum. The found interference effects are shown to play an important role in the formation of the electron angular and momentum distribution, strong left – right asymmetry of the electron ejection, observed carrier‐envelope phase (CEP) effects and formation of the lowenergy electrons in continuum. In addition, the arising new features of atomic dynamics in a strong field are confirmed to take place in a quasistatic regime of ionization in the case of middle IR laser frequency. (© 2010 by Astro Ltd., Published exclusively by WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA)