Energy dissipation from a correlated system driven out of equilibrium.

Rameau, J D; Freutel, S; Kemper, A F; Sentef, M A; Freericks, J K; Avigo, I; Ligges, M; Rettig, L et al. · Nat Commun · 2016

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

In complex materials various interactions have important roles in determining electronic properties. Angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES) is used to study these processes by resolving the complex single-particle self-energy and quantifying how quantum interactions modify bare electronic states. However, ambiguities in the measurement of the real part of the self-energy and an intrinsic inability to disentangle various contributions to the imaginary part of the self-energy can leave the implications of such measurements open to debate. Here we employ a combined theoretical and experimental treatment of femtosecond time-resolved ARPES (tr-ARPES) show how population dynamics measured using tr-ARPES can be used to separate electron-boson interactions from electron-electron interactions. We demonstrate a quantitative analysis of a well-defined electron-boson interaction in the unoccupied spectrum of the cuprate Bi<sub>2</sub>Sr<sub>2</sub>CaCu<sub>2</sub>O<sub>8+x</sub> characterized by an excited population decay time that maps directly to a discrete component of the equilibrium self-energy not readily isolated by static ARPES experiments.