Electron relaxation and excitation processes in metals

The energy dependence of the electron-electron scattering rate in copper is numerically calculated with the use of Monte Carlo integration. The screen ing by d-band electrons, exchange interaction and the non-equilibrium elect ron distribution are taken into account. We also compute the rates of laser -stimulated electron-phonon collisions with the consideration of umklapp pr ocesses. It is shown that in the absence of direct interband transitions, a nd for energies higher than the Fermi energy of the metal, laser absorption is determined by electron-phonon umklapp processes.