Ultrafast Coupling between Light, Coherent Lattice Vibrations, and the Magnetic Structure of Semicovalent LaMnO3

Coherent lattice vibrations are excited and probed with pulses of 10 fs duration in LaMnO3. The measured frequencies correspond to those of Jahn-Teller stretching and of out-of phase rotations of the oxygen octahedra. Surprisingly, the amplitude and damping rate of both modes exhibit a sharp discontinuity at the Neacuteel temperature, highlighting nontrivial coupling between light, lattice, and magnetic structure. We explain this effect by applying the Goodenough-Kanamori rules to the excited state of LaMnO3, and note that charge transfer can invert the sign of the semicovalent exchange interaction, which in turn perturbs the equilibrium bond lengths.