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 screening by d-band electrons, exchange interaction and the non-equilibrium electron distribution are taken into account. We also compute the rates of laser-stimulated electron - phonon collisions with the consideration of umklapp processes. It is shown that in the absence of direct interband transitions, and for energies higher than the Fermi energy of the metal, laser absorption is determined by electron - phonon umklapp processes.