Light-induced renormalization of the band structure of chiral tellurium

Chirality in tellurium derives from a Peierls distortion driven by strong electron-phonon coupling, making this material a unique candidate for observing a light-induced topological phase transition. By using time- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (trARPES), we reveal that upon near-infrared photoexcitation the Peierls gap is modulated by displacively excited coherent phonons with ${\mathrm{A}}_{1\mathrm{g}}$ symmetry as well as chiral-symmetry-breaking ${\mathrm{E}}_{\mathrm{L}\mathrm{O}}^{\mathrm{\prime }}$ modes. By comparison with state-of-the-art TDDFT+U calculations, we reveal the microscopic origin of the in-phase oscillations of band edges, due to phonon-induced modulation of the effective Hubbard $U$ term.