Connecting electron and phonon spectroscopy data to consistently determine quasiparticle-phonon coupling on the surface of topological insulators

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Photoemission and phonon spectroscopies have yielded widely varying estimates of the electron-phonon coupling constant \lambda\ on the surfaces of topological insulators, even for a particular material and technique. We connect the results of these experiments by determining the Dirac fermion quasiparticle spectral function using information from measured spectra of a strongly-interacting, low-lying optical surface phonon band. The manifest spectral features resulting from the coupling are found to vary on energy scales < 1 meV, and are distinct from those traditionally observed in the case of acoustic phonons in metals. We explore different means of determining \lambda\ from the electron perspective and identify definitions that yield values consistent with phonon spectroscopy.