Ultrafast resolution of tunneling delay time

The question of how long a tunneling particle spends inside the barrier region has remained unresolved since the early days of quantum mechanics. The main theoretical contenders, such as the Buttiker-Landauer, Eisenbud-Wigner, and Larmor time, give contradictory answers. On the other hand, recent attempts at reconstructing valence electron dynamics in atoms and molecules have entered a regime where the tunneling time genuinely matters. Here, we compare the main competing theories of tunneling time against experimental measurements using the attoclock in strong laser field ionization of helium atoms. The attoclock uses a close to circularly polarized femtosecond laser pulse, mapping the angle of rotation of the laser field vector to time similar to the hand of a watch. Refined attoclock measurements reveal a real (not instantaneous) tunneling delay time over a large intensity regime, using two independent experimental apparatus. Only two theoretical predictions are compatible within our experimental error: the Larmor time and the probability distribution of tunneling times constructed using a Feynman Path Integral formulation. The latter better matches the observed qualitative change in tunneling time over a wide intensity range, and predicts a broad tunneling time distribution with a long tail. The implication of such a probability distribution of tunneling times, as opposed to a distinct tunneling time, would imply that one must account for a significant, though bounded and measurable, uncertainty as to when the hole dynamics begin to evolve. We therefore expect our results to impact the reconstruction of attosecond electron dynamics following tunnel ionization. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America