Resonant multiphoton ionization of xenon in intense sub-ps-laser pulses

We observe that resonant ionization plays a dominant role in the multiphoton ionization (MPI) of xenon at wavelengths around 600 nm, irrespective of the detuning of multiples of the photon energy from excited states of the undisturbed atom. Angular distributions of energy resolved photoelectrons allow to identify excited states which are strongly ac-Stark shifted in the intense laser field and which serve as intermediate resonances in MPI processes. Angular distributions measured at different wavelengths show that the ac-Stark shift of excited states can be larger than the photon energyhω. Our results support the model proposed by Freeman et al.