English

Light-enhanced electron-phonon coupling from nonlinear electron-phonon coupling

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2017-05-10 v5

Abstract

We investigate an exact nonequilibrium solution of a two-site electron-phonon model, where an infrared-active phonon that is nonlinearly coupled to the electrons is driven by a laser field. The time-resolved electronic spectrum shows coherence-incoherence spectral weight transfer, a clear signature of light-enhanced electron-phonon coupling. The present study is motivated by recent evidence for enhanced electron-phonon coupling in pump-probe TeraHertz and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy in bilayer graphene when driven near resonance with an infrared-active phonon mode [E.~Pomarico et al., Phys.~Rev.~B 95, 024304 (2017)], and by a theoretical study suggesting that transient electronic attraction arises from nonlinear electron-phonon coupling [D.~M.~Kennes et al., Nature Physics (2017), 10.1038/nphys4024]. We show that a linear scaling of light-enhanced electron-phonon coupling with the pump field intensity emerges, in accordance with a time-nonlocal self-energy based on a mean-field decoupling using quasi-classical phonon coherent states. Finally we demonstrate that this leads to enhanced double occupancies in accordance with an effective electron-electron attraction. Our results suggest that materials with strong phonon nonlinearities provide an ideal playground to achieve light-enhanced electron-phonon coupling and possibly light-induced superconductivity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1702.00952,
  title  = {Light-enhanced electron-phonon coupling from nonlinear electron-phonon coupling},
  author = {M. A. Sentef},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1702.00952},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

6 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T18:08:27.106Z