arXiv subjects

Martin Eckstein

Publications and source records attributed to Martin Eckstein.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Stroboscopic prethermalization in weakly interacting periodically driven systems

Time-periodic driving provides a promising route to engineer non-trivial states in quantum many-body systems. However, while it has been shown that the dynamics of integrable systems can synchronize with the driving into a non-trivial periodic motion, generic non-integrable systems are expected to heat up until they display a trivial infinite-temperature behavior. In this paper we show that a quasi-periodic time evolution over many periods can also emerge in systems with weak integrability breaking, with a clear separation of the timescales for synchronization and the eventual approach of the infinite-temperature state. This behavior is the analogue of prethermalization in quenched systems. The synchronized state can be described using a macroscopic number of approximate constants of motion. We corroborate these findings with numerical simulations for the driven Hubbard model.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Beyond the Hubbard bands in strongly correlated lattice bosons

We investigate features in the single-particle spectral function beyond the Hubbard bands in the strongly correlated normal phase of the Bose-Hubbard model. There are two distinct classes of additional peaks generated by the bosonic statistics. The first type is thermally activated Hubbard "sidebands", with the same physical origin as the zero-temperature Hubbard bands, but generated by excitations from thermally activated local occupation number states. The second class are two-particle fluctuation resonances driven by the lattice dynamics. In the unity filling Mott insulator, this takes the form of a localized triplon combined with a dispersing holon. Both types of resonances also manifest themselves in the structure factor and the interaction modulation spectra obtained from nonequilibrium bosonic dynamical mean-field theory calculations. Our findings explain experimental lattice modulation and Bragg spectroscopy results, and they predict a strong temperature dependence of the first sideband, thereby opening the door to precise thermometry of strongly correlated lattice bosons.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2015

Effective doublon and hole temperatures in the photo-doped dynamic Hubbard model

Hirsch's dynamic Hubbard model describes the effect of orbital expansion with occupancy by coupling the doublon operator to an auxiliary boson. We use the nonequilibrium dynamical mean field method to study the properties of doublon and hole carriers in this model in the strongly correlated regime. In particular, we discuss how photodoping leads to doublon and hole populations with different effective temperatures, and we analyze the relaxation behavior as a function of the boson coupling and boson energy. In the polaronic regime, the nontrivial energy exchange between doublons, holes and bosons can result in a negative temperature distribution for the holes.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Exciton Recombination in One-Dimensional Organic Mott Insulators

We present a theory for the recombination of (charged) holons and doublons in one-dimensional organic Mott insulators, which is responsible for the decay of a photoexcited metallic state. Due to the charge-spin separation, the dominant mechanism for recombination at low density of charges involves a multi-phonon emission. We show that a reasonable coupling to phonons is sufficient to explain the fast recombination observed by pump-probe experiments in ET-F$_2$TCNQ, whereby we can also account for the measured pressure dependence of the recombination rate.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Dynamics of screening in photo-doped Mott insulators

We use a nonequilibrium implementation of extended dynamical mean field theory to study the effect of dynamical screening in photo-excited Mott insulators. The insertion of doublons and holes adds low-energy screening modes and leads to a reduction of the Mott gap. The coupling to low-energy bosonic modes further- more opens new relaxation channels and significantly speeds up the thermalization process. We also consider the effect of the energy distribution of the doped carriers on the screening.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Non-thermal melting of Neel order in the Hubbard model

We study the unitary time evolution of antiferromagnetic order in the Hubbard model after a quench starting from the perfect Néel state. In this setup, which is well suited for experiments with cold atoms, one can distinguish fundamentally different pathways for melting of long-range order at weak and strong interaction. In the Mott insulating regime, melting of long-range order occurs due to the ultra-fast transfer of energy from charge excitations to the spin background, while local magnetic moments and their exchange coupling persist during the process. The latter can be demonstrated by a local spin-precession experiment. At weak interaction, local moments decay along with the long-range order. The dynamics is governed by residual quasiparticles, which are reflected in oscillations of the off-diagonal components of the momentum distribution. Such oscillations provide an alternative route to study the prethermalization phenomenon and its influence on the dynamics away from the integrable (noninteracting) limit. The Hubbard model is solved within nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory, using the density matrix-renormalization group as an impurity solver.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory for bosonic lattice models

We develop the nonequilibrium extension of bosonic dynamical mean field theory (BDMFT) and a Nambu real-time strong-coupling perturbative impurity solver. In contrast to Gutzwiller mean-field theory and strong coupling perturbative approaches, nonequilibrium BDMFT captures not only dynamical transitions, but also damping and thermalization effects at finite temperature. We apply the formalism to quenches in the Bose-Hubbard model, starting both from the normal and Bose-condensed phases. Depending on the parameter regime, one observes qualitatively different dynamical properties, such as rapid thermalization, trapping in metastable superfluid or normal states, as well as long-lived or strongly damped amplitude oscillations. We summarize our results in non-equilibrium "phase diagrams" which map out the different dynamical regimes.

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2015

First order dynamical phase transitions

Recently, dynamical phase transitions have been identified based on the non-analytic behavior of the Loschmidt echo in the thermodynamic limit [Heyl et al., Phys.~Rev.~Lett.~{\bf 110}, 135704 (2013)]. By introducing conditional probability amplitudes, we show how dynamical phase transitions can be further classified, both mathematically, and potentially in experiment. This leads to the definition of first-order dynamical phase transitions. Furthermore, we develop a generalized Keldysh formalism which allows to use nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory to study the Loschmidt echo and dynamical phase transitions in high-dimensional, non-integrable models. We find dynamical phase transitions of first order in the Falicov-Kimball model and in the Hubbard model.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Role of impact ionization in the thermalization of photo-excited Mott insulators

We study the influence of the pulse energy and fluence on the thermalization of photo-doped Mott insulators. If the Mott gap is smaller than the width of the Hubbard bands, the kinetic energy of individual carriers can be large enough to produce doublon-hole pairs via a process analogous to impact ionization. The thermalization dynamics, which involves an adjustment of the doublon and hole densities, thus changes as a function of the energy of the photo-doped carriers and exhibits two timescales -- a fast relaxation related to impact ionization and a slower timescale associated with higher-order scattering processes. The slow dynamics depends more strongly on the gap size and the photo-doping concentration.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Phonon-pump XUV-photoemission-probe in graphene: evidence for non-adiabatic heating of Dirac carriers by lattice deformation

We modulate the atomic structure of bilayer graphene by driving its lattice at resonance with the in-plane E1u lattice vibration at 6.3um. Using time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (tr-ARPES) with extreme ultra-violet (XUV) pulses, we measure the response of the Dirac electrons near the K-point. We observe that lattice modulation causes anomalous carrier dynamics, with the Dirac electrons reaching lower peak temperatures and relaxing at faster rate compared to when the excitation is applied away from the phonon resonance or in monolayer samples. Frozen phonon calculations predict dramatic band structure changes when the E1u vibration is driven, which we use to explain the anomalous dynamics observed in the experiment.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Coexistence of excited polarons and metastable delocalized states in photo-induced metals

We study how polaronic states form as a function of time due to strong electron-phonon coupling, starting from a hot electron distribution which is representative of a photo-induced metallic state immediately after laser excitation. For this purpose we provide the exact solution of the single-electron Holstein model within nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory. In particular, this allows us to reveal key features of the transient metallic state in the numerically most challenging regime, the adiabatic regime, in which phonon frequencies are smaller than the electronic bandwidth: Initial coherent phonon oscillations are strongly damped, leaving the system in a mixture of excited polaron states and metastable delocalized states. We compute the time-resolved photoemission spectrum, which allows to disentangle two contributions. The existence of long-lived delocalized states suggest ways to externally control transient properties of photo-doped metals.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Ultra-fast photo-carrier relaxation in Mott insulators with short-range spin correlations

We compute the time-resolved photoemission spectrum after photo-doping in a two-dimensional Mott-Hubbard insulator. We find that the relaxation rate of high-energy photo-doped electrons in the paramagnetic phase scales with the strength of the nearest-neighbor spin correlations, which implies a pronounced increase of the relaxation times with temperature and excitation density. Finite doping, in contrast, opens additional scattering channels and leads to a faster relaxation. To obtain our results we have implemented a nonequilibrium version of the dynamical cluster approximation (DCA), which, in contrast to single-site dynamical mean-field theory, captures the effect of short-range correlations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree impurity solver for nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory

Nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) solves correlated lattice models by obtaining their local correlation functions from an effective model consisting of a single impurity in a self-consistently determined bath. The recently developed mapping of this impurity problem from the Keldysh time contour onto a time-dependent single-impurity Anderson model (SIAM) [C. Gramsch et al., Phys. Rev. B 88, 235106 (2013)] allows one to use wave function-based methods in the context of nonequilibrium DMFT. Within this mapping, long times in the DMFT simulation become accessible by an increasing number of bath orbitals, which requires efficient representations of the time-dependent SIAM wave function. These can be achieved by the multiconfiguration time-dependent Hartree (MCTDH) method and its multi-layer extensions. We find that MCTDH outperforms exact diagonalization for large baths in which the latter approach is still within reach and allows for the calculation of SIAMs beyond the system size accessible by exact diagonalization. Moreover, we illustrate the computation of the self-consistent two-time impurity Green's function within the MCTDH second quantization representation.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory and its applications

The study of nonequilibrium phenomena in correlated lattice systems has developed into an active and exciting branch of condensed matter physics. This research field provides rich new insights that could not be obtained from the study of equilibrium situations, and the theoretical understanding of the physics often requires the development of new concepts and methods. On the experimental side, ultra-fast pump-probe spectroscopies enable studies of excitation and relaxation phenomena in correlated electron systems, while ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices provide a new way to control and measure the time-evolution of interacting lattice systems with a vastly different characteristic timescale compared to electron systems. A theoretical description of these phenomena is challenging because, firstly, we have to compute the quantum-mechanical time-evolution of many-body systems out of equilibrium, and secondly, deal with strong-correlation effects which can be of nonperturbative nature. In this review, we discuss the nonequilibrium extension of the dynamical mean field theory (DMFT), which treats quantum fluctuations in the time domain and works directly in the thermodynamic limit. The method reduces the complexity of the calculation via a mapping to a self-consistent impurity problem. Particular emphasis is placed on a detailed derivation of the formalism, and on a discussion of numerical techniques, which enable solutions of the effective nonequilibrium DMFT impurity problem. We summarize the insights gained into the properties of the infinite-dimensional Hubbard model under strong non-equilibrium conditions. These examples illustrate the current ability of the theoretical framework to reproduce and understand fundamental nonequilibrium phenomena, such as the dielectric breakdown of Mott insulators, photo-doping, and collapse-and-revival oscillations in quenched systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Field-induced polaron formation in the Holstein-Hubbard model

We study the effect of strong DC and pulsed electric fields on a Mott insulating system with coupling to optical phonons. A DC field of the order of the gap induces a metallic state characterized by polaronic features in the gap region and a partially inverted population. In this quasi-steady state, the field-induced doublon-hole production is balanced by a phonon-enhanced doublon-hole recombination. The photo-excitation of carriers by a pulsed field leads to similar modifications of the electronic structure in the gap region, and an associated reduction of the doublon life-time. We demonstrate that the field-induced localization of electrons effectively enhances the phonon coupling, an effect which should be measureable with time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Ultrafast separation of photo-doped carriers in Mott antiferromagnets

We use inhomogeneous nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory to investigate the spreading of photo-excited carriers in Mott insulating heterostructures with strong internal fields. Antiferromagnetic correlations are found to affect the carrier dynamics in a crucial manner: An antiferromagnetic spin background can absorb energy from photo-excited carriers on an ultrafast timescale, thus enabling fast transport between different layers and the separation of electron and hole-like carriers, whereas in the paramagnetic state, carriers become localized in strong fields. This interplay between charge and spin degrees of freedom can be exploited to control the functionality of devices based on Mott insulating heterostructures with polar layers, e.g., for photovoltaic applications.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Auxiliary Hamiltonian representation of the nonequilibrium Dyson equation

The nonequilibrium Dyson (or Kadanoff-Baym) equation, which is an equation of motion with long-range memory kernel for real-time Green functions, underlies many numerical approaches based on the Keldysh formalism. In this paper we map the problem of solving the Dyson equation in real-time onto a noninteracting auxiliary Hamiltonian with additional bath degrees of freedom. The solution of the auxiliary model does not require the evaluation of a memory kernel and can thus be implemented in a very memory efficient way. The mapping is derived for a self-energy which is local in space and is thus directly applicable within nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). We apply the method to study the interaction quench in the Hubbard model for an optical lattice with a narrow confinement, using inhomogeneous DMFT in combination with second-order weak-coupling perturbation theory. We find that, although the quench excites pronounced density oscillations, signatures of the two-stage relaxation similar to the homogeneous system can be observed by looking at the time-dependent occupations of natural orbitals.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Nonequilibrium self-energy functional theory

The self-energy functional theory (SFT) is generalized to describe the real-time dynamics of correlated lattice-fermion models far from thermal equilibrium. This is achieved by means of a reformulation of the original equilibrium theory in terms of double-time Green's functions on the Keldysh-Matsubara contour. We construct a functional which is stationary at the physical (nonequilibrium) self-energy and which yields the grand potential of the initial thermal state at the physical point. Non-perturbative approximations can be defined by specifying a reference system that serves to generate trial self-energies. These self-energies are varied by varying the reference system's one-particle parameters on the Keldysh-Matsubara contour. In case of thermal equilibrium, the new approach reduces to the conventional SFT. However, "unphysical" variations, i.e., variations that are different on the upper and the lower branch of the Keldysh contour, must be considered to fix the time-dependence of the optimal physical parameters via the variational principle. Functional derivatives in the nonequilibrium SFT Euler equation are carried out analytically to derive conditional equations for the variational parameters that are accessible to a numerical evaluation via a time-propagation scheme. Approximations constructed by means of the nonequilibrium SFT are shown to be inherently causal, internally consistent and to respect macroscopic conservation laws resulting from gauge symmetries of the Hamiltonian. This comprises the nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory but also dynamical-impurity and variational-cluster approximations that are specified by reference systems with a finite number of degrees of freedom. In this way, non-perturbative and consistent approximations can be set up, the numerical evaluation of which is accessible to an exact-diagonalization approach.

cond-mat.str-el↗