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Abstract

The role of Coulomb focusing in above-threshold ionization in an elliptically polarized midinfrared strong laser field is investigated within a semiclassical model incorporating tunneling and Coulomb field effects. It is shown that Coulomb focusing up to moderate ellipticity values (ξ≲0.3) is dominated by multiple forward scattering of the ionized electron by the atomic core that creates a characteristic low-energy structure in the photoelectron spectrum and is responsible for the peculiar energy scaling of the ionization normalized yield along the major polarization axis. At higher ellipticities, the electron continuum dynamics is disturbed by the Coulomb field effect mostly at the exit of the ionization tunnel. Due to the latter, the normalized yield is found to be enhanced, with the enhancement factor being sharply pronounced at intermediate ellipticities.