Calculation and manipulation of the chirp rates of high-order harmonics

We calculate the linear chirp rates of high-order harmonics in argon, generated by intense, 810 nm laser pulses, and explore the dependence of the chirp rate on harmonic order, driving laser intensity, and pulse duration. By using a time-frequency representation of the harmonic fields we can identify several different linear chirp contributions. to the plateau harmonics. Our results, which are based on numerical integration of the time-dependent Schrodinger equation, are in good agreement with the adiabatic predictions of the strong field approximation for the chirp rates. Extending the theoretical analysis in the recent paper by Mauritsson et al. [Phys. Rev. A 70, 021801(R) (2004)], we also manipulate the chirp rates of the harmonics by adding a chirp to the driving pulse. We show that the chirp rate for harmonic q is given by the sum of the intrinsic chirp rate, which is determined by the new duration and peak intensity of the chirped driving pulse, and q times the external chirp rate.