In the present work, a theoretical study of electron-phonon (electron-ion)
coupling rates in semiconductors driven out of equilibrium is performed.
Transient change of optical coefficients reflects the band gap shrinkage in
covalently bonded materials, and thus, the heating of atomic lattice. Utilizing
this dependence, we test various models of electron-ion coupling. The
simulation technique is based on tight-binding molecular dynamics. Our
simulations with the dedicated hybrid approach (XTANT) indicate that the widely
used Fermi's golden rule can break down describing material excitation on
femtosecond time scales. In contrast, dynamical coupling proposed in this work
yields a reasonably good agreement of simulation results with available
experimental data
