Stroboscopic Tests for Thermalization of Electrons in Pump-Probe Experiments

One of the goals of pump-probe spectroscopies is to determine how electrons relax after they have been driven out of equilibrium. It is challenging to determine how close electrons are to a thermal state solely by fitting their distribution to a Fermi-Dirac distribution. Instead, we propose that one compare the effective temperatures of both fermions and collective bosonic modes (derived from the fermions) to determine the distance from a thermal state. Measurements of effective fermionic and bosonic temperatures can be achieved directly via photoemission and nonresonant Raman scattering. Their difference quantifies the distance from thermal equilibrium.