Long-lived excited states at surfaces: Cs/Cu(111) and Cs/Cu(100) systems

One-electron and multielectron contributions to the decay of transient states in the Cs/Cu(111) and (100) systems are studied by a joined wave-packet propagation and many-body metal response approach. The long lifetime of these states is due to the Cu L and X band gaps which reduce the electron tunneling between Cs and Cu. In the (111) case, the decay is mainly by inelastic e-e interaction, whereas in the (100) case, electron tunneling is dominating. This accounts very well for the experimental findings Bauer et al., Phys. Rev. B 55, 10 040 (1997) and Ogawa et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1931 (1999)].