New aspects of electronic excitations at the bismuth surface: Topology, thermalization and coupling to coherent phonons

We review measurements of angle and time resolved photoelectron spectroscopy on the surface states of the Bi(1 1 1) surface. The work covers several aspects of these surface states, discussing the topological properties, the strong anisotropy of the spin–orbit splitting and the dynamical relaxation of photoexcited electrons. Since time resolved experiments disentagle interaction processes in real time, the reported data offer a novel perspective on the motion of charge carriers in surface states and will serve as an unuseful reference for other systems with strong spin–orbit coupling.