Extraordinary Lifetime Enhancement of Coherent Phonon-Amplitude Modes in the Excitonic Insulator Phase of Ta2Pd3Te5

Abstract: The excitonic insulator (EI) is an electronic phase of condensed excitons. However, in many prototypical materials the presence of a concurrent structural transition complicates the identification of a purely electronic origin of the ordered state. Here, we investigate Ta2Pd3Te5, in which an EI phase develops below TC ~ 100 K in the absence of a detectable structural transition. We characterize the excitonic condensate via its coherent phonon-amplitude response. Most strikingly, an extraordinarily strong lifetime enhancement of these modes sets in below TC which we establish as a new and robust fingerprint linked to exciton condensation. We discuss possibilities to capture the enhancement when taking into account a coupling of excitonic and lattice effects in line with the coupled phonon-amplitude response. Within an order-parameter polaron picture coupling to the excitonic state may dress the phonon mode and thereby suppress its relaxation and a phenomenological model combines the anharmonic phonon response and a reduced electronic scattering due to the gap opening in the EI phase.