Crossed beam pump and probe dynamics in metal clusters.

ABSTRACT

We investigate theoretically pump and probe dynamics in metal clusters with crossed-polarization laser beams. We explore the relation between the pronounced Mie plasmon resonance and the laser frequency. The resonance moves with the cluster radius and splits according to the actual deformation. We demonstrate that probe pulses with different (linear) polarization axes allow one to resolve the global shape oscillations of the cluster in monopole and quadrupole degrees of freedom.