Scattering of Rydberg excitons by phonon-plasmon modes

Abstract

We propose a new scattering mechanism of Rydberg excitons, i.e., those with high principal quantum numbers, namely scattering by coupled LO phonon-plasmon modes, which becomes possible due to small differences in energies of the states due to different quantum defects. Already in very low-density electron–hole plasmas these provide a substantial contribution to the excitonic linewidth. This effect should allow determining plasma densities by a simple line shape analysis. Whenever one expects that low-density electron–hole plasma is present the plasmon induced broadening is of high significance and must be taken into account in the interpretation.