Attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy in monolayer hexagonal boron nitride

Abstract: We simulate the attosecond transient absorption spectroscopy (ATAS) of monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) using the time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) and two-band density-matrix equations within the tight-binding approximation. The simulation results from the two methods are qualitatively consistent. We focus on the fishbone structure near the energy gap at the $\textrm{M}$ point, which exhibits a temporal period equal to that of the pump laser. To gain deeper insight into this structure, we simplify the two-band model to a single-electron model located at the $\textsc{M}$ point, allowing us to derive an analytical expression that can qualitatively reproduce the numerical results. Our analytical results reveal that both the interband transition dipole moments (TDMs) and the Berry connection play important roles in the fishbone structure of the ATAS. To isolate the effect of the interband TDMs, we set the Berry connection to zero, and the corresponding results reveal that the Berry connection suppresses the intensity of the absorption spectrum. Our study may shed light on the generation mechanism of the fishbone structure of the ATAS in hBN.