We report ultrafast quasiparticle (QP) dynamics and coherent acoustic phonons
in undoped CaFe_2As_2 iron pnictide single crystals exhibiting spin-density
wave (SDW) and concurrent structural phase transition at temperature TSDW ~ 165
K using femtosecond time-resolved pump-probe spectroscopy. The contributions in
transient differential reflectivity arising from exponentially decaying QP
relaxation and oscillatory coherent acoustic phonon mode show large variations
in the vicinity of T_SDW. From the temperature-dependence of the QP
recombination dynamics in the SDW phase, we evaluate a BCS-like temperature
dependent charge gap with its zero-temperature value of ~(1.6+/-0.2)k_BT_SDW,
whereas, much above T_SDW, an electron-phonon coupling constant of ~0.13 has
been estimated from the linear temperature-dependence of the QP relaxation
time. The long-wavelength coherent acoustic phonons with typical time-period of
~100 ps have been analyzed in the light of propagating strain pulse model
providing important results for the optical constants, sounds velocity and the
elastic modulus of the crystal in the whole temperature range of 3 K to 300 K.Comment: Revised version (to appear as Full Paper in Journal of Physical
Society of Japan (2013)); http://jpsj.ipap.jp/link?JPSJ/82/044715
