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.