Ultrafast Mott transition driven by nonlinear phonons

Nonlinear phononics holds the promise for controlling properties of quantum materials on the ultrashort timescale. Using nonequilibrium dynamical mean-field theory, we solve a model for the description of organic solids, where correlated electrons couple non-linearly to a quantum phonon-mode. Unlike previous works, we exactly diagonalize the local phonon mode within the non-crossing approximation (NCA) to include the full phononic fluctuations. By exciting the local phonon in a broad range of frequencies near resonance with an ultrashort pulse, we show it is possible to induce a Mott insulator-to-metal phase transition. Conventional semiclassical calculations, where the quantum phonon operators are replaced by their classical expectation values, fail to capture the insulator-to-metal transition. This fact, together with the non-thermal character of the photo-induced metal, suggests a leading role of the phononic fluctuations and of the dynamic nature of the state in the vibrationally induced quasiparticle coherence.