Field-cycle-resolved photoionization in solids

Abstract: The Keldysh theory of photoionization in a solid dielectric is generalized to the case of arbitrarily short driving pulses of arbitrary pulse shape. We derive a closed-form solution for the nonadiabatic ionization rate in a transparent solid with a periodic dispersion relation, which reveals ultrafast ionization dynamics within the field cycle and recovers the key results of the Keldysh theory in the appropriate limiting regimes.