Ultrafast Fluence-Reversal Fingerprint of Fragile Kondo Hybridization in CePt$_2$In$_7$

Abstract

The emergence of heavy quasiparticles in a Kondo lattice is usually viewed as the formation of a low-energy hybridization gap. Whether this gap represents a rigid electronic structure or a fragile many-body state that can be dynamically reconfigured remains a central question for heavy-fermion systems near magnetic order, quantum criticality, and unconventional superconductivity. Here we use femtosecond pump-probe reflectivity to interrogate this problem in the weakly hybridized Kondo-lattice compound CePt$_2$In$_7$. At low fluence, a slow quasiparticle relaxation channel emerges below $T^* \sim$ 40 K and follows a Rothwarf-Taylor bottleneck response with a low-energy recombination scale 2$\Delta \approx$ 7.4 meV. Coherent optical phonons, independently identified by Raman spectroscopy, act as an internal lattice thermometer and rule out large quasi-equilibrium lattice heating as the origin of the nonlinear electronic response. The phonon-free electronic amplitude $A_{\rm elec}$ reveals a fluence-reversal fingerprint: with cooling from the hybridization-crossover regime, the response evolves from weak-linear behavior to Rothwarf-Taylor-like bottleneck suppression and finally to anomalous high-fluence enhancement at the lowest temperatures. This reversal cannot be accounted for by a rigid fixed-gap bottleneck alone and instead identifies an ultrafast optical signature of photoinduced redistribution of a fragile Kondo-hybridized electronic response.