Transient trapping into metastable states in systems with competing orders

The use of tailored radiation pulses to control materials properties by guiding order parameters across a free energy landscape is an important goal of current research. Here we analyse the dynamics of systems with multiple competing or cooperative orders, focussing on situations where the raidation pulse drives the system to locally disordered states and considering the subsequent regrowth of the order. We show via a time-dependent Ginsburg Landau analuysis how the distribution of fluctuations evolves and determine the circumstances under which the system may evolve into a metastable, rather than global, minimum of the free energy landscape. In the limit of small Ginsburg parameter a controlled theory of the evolution reveals generic features of the order parameter probability distributions. The theory is applied to pump problem experiments on charge ordered superconducting cuprates and to the dynamic interplay of magnetic and charge order in rare earth nickelates.