Charge-density-wave melting in the one-dimensional Holstein model*

We study the real-time dynamics in the half-filled Holstein model starting from different initial states that are charge-density-wave (CDW) ordered. The regime where the relaxation dynamics is dominated by electron-phonon coupling is considered (complementary to the case studied in [1] where strong electron interactions were present) and we focus on the far-from-equilibrium regime. Here, a clear separation of time scales between electron relaxation and phonon equilibration is identified. In the transient dynamics we observe effects like a temporal self trapping of the electrons. The study of such regimes is enabled by extending the time-evolving block decimation algorithm with local basis optimization, previously applied to single-polaron dynamics [2], to a half-filled system.

[1] Hashimoto and Ishihara, PRB 96, 035154 (2017)
[2] Brockt et al., PRB 92, 241106(R) (2015)