Nonequilibrium Electron Dynamics in a Solid with a Changing Nodal Excitation Gap

Abstract

We develop a computationally inexpensive model to examine the dynamics of boson-assisted electron relaxation in solids, studying nonequilibrium dynamics in a metal, in a nodal superconductor with a stationary density of states, and in a nodal superconductor where the gap dynamically opens. In the metallic system, the electron population resembles a thermal population at all times, but the presence of even a fixed nodal gap both invalidates a purely thermal treatment and sharply curtails relaxation rates. For a gap that is allowed to open as electron relaxation proceeds, effects are even more pronounced, and gap dynamics become coupled to the dynamics of the electron population. Comparisons to experiments reveal that phase-space restrictions in the presence of a gap are likely to play a significant role in the widespread observation of coexisting femtosecond and picosecond dynamics in the cuprate high-temperature superconductors.

12 pages, 7 figures

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• Time- and Angle-Resolved Photoemission Studies of Quantum Materials
• Ultrafast Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy of Quantum Materials
• Particle-hole Asymmetry in the Cuprate Pseudogap Measured with Time-Resolved Spectroscopy
• Dynamics of the superconducting order parameter through ultrafast normal-to-superconducting phase transition in Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$ from multi-pulse polarization-resolved transient optical reflectivity
• Stroboscopic Tests for Thermalization of Electrons in Pump/Probe Experiments
• Efficient Prediction of Time- and Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy Measurements on a Non-Equilibrium BCS Superconductor
• Photoinduced filling of near nodal gap in Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$
• Interpreting pulse-shape effects in pump-probe spectroscopies
• Ultrafast dynamics of electron-phonon coupling in a metal
• Ultrafast Raman probe of the photoinduced superconducting to normal state transition in the cuprate Bi${}_2$Sr${}_2$CaCu${}_2$O${}_{8+\delta }$