Quasi-one-dimensional systems exhibit many-body effects elusive in higher dimensions. A prime example is spin-orbital separation, which has been measured by resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) in Sr2CuO3. Here, we theoretically analyze the time-resolved RIXS spectrum of Sr2CuO3 under the action of a time-dependent electric field. We show that the external field can reversibly modify the parameters in the effective t−J model used to describe spinon and orbiton dynamics in the material. For strong driving amplitudes, we find that the spectrum changes qualitatively as a result of reversing the relative spinon to orbiton velocity. The analysis shows that in general, the spin-orbital dynamics in Mott insulators in combination with time-resolved RIXS should provide a suitable platform to explore the reversible control of many-body physics in the solid with strong laser fields.
@article{arxiv.2111.12514,
title = {Ultrafast control of spin-orbital separation probed with time-resolved RIXS},
author = {Aaron Müller and Francesco Grandi and Martin Eckstein},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.12514},
year = {2022}
}