We present a detailed analysis of hole dynamics in noble metals (Cu and Au), by means of first-principles many-body calculations. While holes in a free-electron gas are known to live shorter than electrons with the same excitation energy, our results indicate that d-holes in noble metals exhibit longer inelastic lifetimes than excited sp-electrons, in agreement with experiment. The density of states available for d-hole decay is larger than that for the decay of excited electrons; however, the small overlap between d- and sp-states below the Fermi level increases the d-hole lifetime. The impact of d-hole dynamics on electron-hole correlation effects, which are of relevance in the analysis of time-resolved two-photon photoemission experiments, is also addressed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0008253,
title = {Hole dynamics in noble metals},
author = {I. Campillo and A. Rubio and J. M. Pitarke and A. Goldmann and P. M. Echenique},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0008253},
year = {2009}
}