Ultrafast Quenching of the Exchange Interaction in a Mott Insulator

We investigate how fast and how effective photocarrier excitation can modify the exchange interaction J_ex in the prototype Mott-Hubbard insulator. We demonstrate an ultrafast quenching of J_ex both by evaluating exchange integrals from a time-dependent response formalism and by explicitly simulating laser-induced spin precession in an antiferromagnet that is canted by an external magnetic field. In both cases, the electron dynamics is obtained from nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory. We find that the modified J_ex emerges already within a few electron hopping times after the pulse, with a reduction that is comparable to the effect of chemical doping