Ultrafast Heating Induced Suppression of d-band Dominance in the Electronic Excitation Spectrum of Cuprum

The combination of isochoric heating of solids by free electron lasers (FEL) and in situ diagnostics by X-ray Thomson scattering (XRTS) allows for measurements of material properties at warm dense matter (WDM) conditions relevant for astrophysics, inertial confinement fusion, and material science. In the case of metals, the FEL beam pumps energy directly into electrons with the lattice structure of ions being nearly unaffected. This leads to a unique transient state that gives rise to a set of interesting physical effects, which can serve as a reliable testing platform for WDM theories. In this work, we present extensive linear-response time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) results for the electronic dynamic structure factor of isochorically heated copper with a face-centered cubic lattice. At ambient conditions, the plasmon is heavily damped due to the presence of d-band excitations, and its position is independent of the wavenumber. In contrast, the plasmon feature starts to dominate the excitation spectrum and has a Bohm-Gross type plasmon dispersion for temperatures T ≥ 4  eV, where the quasi-free electrons in the interstitial region are in the WDM regime. In addition, we analyze the thermal changes in the d-band excitations and outline the possibility to use future XRTS measurements of isochorically heated copper as a controlled testbed for WDM theories.