2016/06/06 by Christopher L. Smallwood, Tristan Miller, Tristan L. Miller +3 · 13 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #Condensed matter physics #Cuprate #Electron #Excitation #Femtosecond #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Non-equilibrium thermodynamics #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Picosecond #Population #Quantum mechanics #Relaxation (psychology) #Superconductivity #Thermal #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.93.235107
published in Physical review. B./Physical review. B 93(23) (American Physical Society) · 12 pages, 7 figures
openalex publication_date 2016/06/06 · arxiv created 2016/06/14 · arxiv updated 2016/06/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We develop a computationally inexpensive model to examine the dynamics of boson-assisted electron relaxation in solids, studying nonequilibrium dynamics in a metal, in a nodal superconductor with a stationary density of states, and in a nodal superconductor where the gap dynamically opens. In the metallic system, the electron population resembles a thermal population at all times, but the presence of even a fixed nodal gap both invalidates a purely thermal treatment and sharply curtails relaxation rates. For a gap that is allowed to open as electron relaxation proceeds, effects are even more pronounced, and gap dynamics become coupled to the dynamics of the electron population. Comparisons to experiments reveal that phase-space restrictions in the presence of a gap are likely to play a significant role in the widespread observation of coexisting femtosecond and picosecond dynamics in the cuprate high-temperature superconductors.