Inhomogeneous disordering at a photoinduced charge density wave transition

Symmetry-breaking phase transitions are ubiquitous in nature. The study of their dynamics in solids has often been performed using homogeneous order parameter theories. By microscopically modeling the photoinduced melting and recovery of a charge density wave, the authors instead show here that the transient dynamics can lead to disordered state, where the average order parameter is not representative of the atomic-scale configuration. This provides a possible minimal model description of the experimentally proposed inhomogeneous disordering pathway in photoinduced phase transitions.