Abstract:We propose a microscopic mechanism to resolve the long-standing puzzle of the insulator-to-metal transition in correlated electronic systems, most notably charge-density-wave (CDW) materials and Mott insulators, driven far-from-equilibrium by a DC electric field. By introducing a generic model of electrons coupled to an inelastic medium of phonons, we demonstrate that an electron avalanche can occur in the bulk limit of such insulators at arbitrarily small electric field. The quantum avalanche arises by the ge… Show more
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