Ultrafast Laser Driven Many-Body Dynamics and Kondo Coherence Collapse

Ultrafast laser pulse has provided a systematic way to inspect the dynamics of electrons in condensed matter systems. In this paper, by means of time-dependent density matrix renormalization group, we study an ultrafast laser driven Kondo lattice model, in which conduction electrons are strongly coupled with magnetically local moments. The single-particle spectral function due to strong correlation effects and photon emission in the non-equilibrium states under laser driving are calculated. We find laser field excited collective doublon-hole pairs and an associated transient melting of Kondo coherence phase, signifying the collapse of Kondo energy gap. Moreover, we show that the photon emission, induced by a strong laser field, exhibits a different intensity characteristics than in the equilibrium Kondo insulator, which could be explained by the Kondo collapse and related suppression of both intra-band and inter-band contribution in Kondo melting liquid. These theoretical insight is accessible with time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and high-harmonic generation spectroscopy, and will stimulate the investigation of nonequilibrium dynamics and nonlinear phenomenon in heavy fermion systems.