Wave packet dynamics in chains with delayed electronic nonlinear response

Abstract

We study the dynamics of one electron wave packet in a chain with a non-adiabatic electron-phonon interaction. The electron-phonon coupling is taken into account in the time-dependent Schrödinger equation by a delayed cubic nonlinearity. In the limit of an adiabatic coupling, the self-trapping phenomenon occurs when the nonlinearity parameter exceeds a critical value of the order of the band width. We show that a weaker nonlinearity is required to produce self-trapping in the regime of short delay times. However, this trend is reversed for slow nonlinear responses, resulting in a reentrant phase-diagram. In slowly responding media, self-trapping only takes place for very strong nonlinearities.

4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Physical Review Letters

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Fundamental solitons in discrete lattices with a delayed nonlinear response
• Wavepacket spreading dynamics under a non-instantaneous nonlinearity: Self-trapping, defocusing and focusing