  The low-energy excitations in the charge-ordered phase of polycrystalline
La0.25Ca0.75MnO3 are explored by frequency-domain terahertz spectroscopy. In
the frequency range from 4 cm^-1 to 700 cm^-1 (energies 0.4 meV to 90 meV) and
at temperatures down to 5 K, we do not detect any feature that can be
associated with the collective response of the spatially modulated charge
continuum. In the antiferromagnetically ordered phase, broad absorption bands
appear in the conductivity and permittivity spectra around 30 cm^-1 and 100
cm^-1 which are assigned to former acoustic phonons optically activated due to
a fourfold superstructure in the crystal lattice. Our results indicate that
characteristic energies of collective excitations of the charge-ordered phase
in La0:25Ca0:75MnO3, if any, lie below 1 meV. At our lowest frequencies of only
few wavenumbers a strong relaxation is observed above 100 K connected to the
formation of the charge-ordered state.
