Wave packet dynamics in chains with delayed electronic nonlinear response

We study the dynamics of one electron wave packet in a chain with a non-adiabatic electron-phonon interaction. The electron-phonon coupling is taken into account in the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation by a delayed cubic nonlinearity. In the limit of an adiabatic coupling, the self-trapping phenomenon occurs when the nonlinearity parameter exceeds a critical value of the order of the band width. We show that a weaker nonlinearity is required to produce self-trapping in the regime of short delay times. However, this trend is reversed for slow nonlinear responses, resulting in a reentrant phase-diagram. In slowly responding media, self-trapping only takes place for very strong nonlinearities.