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Theory of photoinduced phase transitions: from semiclassical to quantum aspects
Tetsuo Ogawa Osaka University, Japan
Topics
I review recent progress of theoretical studies for the photoinduced phase
transitions (PIPTs) to clarify what the PIPTs are. The PIPTs are classified
into two types: (a) global phase change via optically excited states and
(b) new phase creation in optically excited states.
- First, concerning with (a), photoinduced structural phase transitions via
excited electronic states are discussed theoretically using a
one-dimensional model composed of localized electrons and lattices under
the adiabatic or diabatic approximation. I show that the global structural
change by photoexcitation only at a site is possible, and I clarify
conditions for the occurrence of such phenomena. Spatiotemporal dynamics of
nonequilibrium first-order phase transitions is also investigated in detail
in terms of photoinduced nucleations and domino processes of the domain
boundaries (domain walls), which are in striking contrast to the mean-field
dynamics.
In the adiabatic regime, after the spontaneous emission of a photon, an
initial local structural change (i) remains locally, (ii) induces
cooperatively a global structural change, or (iii) disappears and returns
to the initial phase. Dynamical features of the case (ii) are characterized
by the deterministic domino process; domain walls between the two phases
move deterministically at a constant velocity (with changing speed) without
further spontaneous emissions in the case of strong (weak) dissipation. In
the diabatic regime, similar three types of structural change exist. The
domain-wall dynamics is described as the stochastic domino process, which
is accompanied by the successive radiative transitions.
- Second, concerning with (b), I discuss quantum states of electron-hole
systems, which are optically excited states consisting of many electrons
and holes in two bands. In particular, the exciton Mott transition, the
"from-insulator-to-metal transition" of the electron-hole systems as the
particle density increases is introduced in detail. In the one-dimensional
case, bozonization technique and the renormalization group method are
employed. The one-dimensional systems are found to be insulating even at
the high density limit and that the exciton Mott transition never occurs at
absolute zero temperature. The insulating ground state exhibits a strong
instability towards the crystallization of biexcitons. In the case of
higher dimensions, we analyze a two-band Hubbard model with interactions of
electron-electron (hole-hole) repulsion U and electron-hole attraction -U'.
With the use of the dynamical mean-field theory, the phase diagram in the
U-U' plane is obtained (which is exact in infinite dimensions) assuming
that electron-hole pairs do not condense. When both electron and hole bands
are half-filled, two types of insulating states appear: the Mott-Hubbard
insulator for U>U' and the biexciton-like insulator for U
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