Abstract.
We show that the dynamics of the surface plasmon in metallic nanoparticles damped by its interaction with particle-hole excitations can be modelled by a single degree of freedom coupled to an environment. In this approach, the fast decrease of the dipole matrix elements that couple the plasmon to particle-hole pairs with the energy of the excitation allows a separation of the Hilbert space into low- and high-energy subspaces at a characteristic energy that we estimate. A picture of the spectrum consisting of a collective excitation built from low-energy excitations which interacts with high-energy particle-hole states can be formalised. The high-energy excitations yield an approximate description of a dissipative environment (or “bath") within a finite confined system. Estimates for the relevant timescales establish the Markovian character of the bath dynamics with respect to the surface plasmon evolution for nanoparticles with a radius larger than about 1 nm.
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Seoanez, C., Weick, G., Jalabert, R. et al. Friction of the surface plasmon by high-energy particle-hole pairs. Eur. Phys. J. D 44, 351–358 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2007-00195-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2007-00195-4