Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering study of entangled spin-orbital excitations in superconducting PrFeAsO0.7

Abstract

Low-energy electron excitation spectra were measured on a single crystal of a typical iron-based superconductor PrFeAsO${}_{0.7}$ using resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) at the Fe-$L_3$ edge. Characteristic RIXS features are clearly observed around 0.5, 1-1.5 and 2-3 eV energy losses. These excitations are analyzed microscopically with theoretical calculations using a 22-orbital model derived from first-principles electronic structure calculation. Based on the agreement with the experiment, the RIXS features are assigned to Fe-$d$ orbital excitations which, at low energies, are accompanied by spin flipping and dominated by Fe $d_{yz}$ and $d_{xz}$ orbital characters. Furthermore, our calculations suggest dispersive momentum dependence of the RIXS excitations below 0.5 eV, and predict remarkable splitting and merging of the lower-energy excitations in momentum space. Those excitations, which were not observed in the present experiment, highlight the potential of RIXS with an improved energy resolution to unravel new details of the electronic structure of the iron-based superconductors.

12 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (13)

• Magnetic Order versus superconductivity in the Iron-based layered La(O1-xFx)FeAs systems
• Unconventional pairing originating from disconnected Fermi surfaces in superconducting LaFeAsO${}_{1-x}$F${}_x$}
• LaFeAsO${}_{1-x}$F${}_x$: A low carrier density superconductor near itinerant magnetism
• Iron-Based Superconductors: current status of materials and pairing mechanism
• Spin-Orbital Separation in the quasi 1D Mott-insulator Sr2CuO3
• Multiband magnetism and superconductivity in Fe-based compounds
• A possible ground state and its electronic structure of a mother material (LaOFeAs) of new superconductors
• Spin excitations in a single La${}_2$CuO${}_4$ layer
• High-energy spin and charge excitations in electron-doped copper oxide superconductors
• Theory of itinerant magnetic excitations in the SDW phase of iron-based superconductors
• Itinerant Nature of Magnetism in Iron Pnictides: A first principles study
• Spin and Orbital Characters of Excitations in Iron Arsenide Superconductors Revealed by Simulated Fe L-Edge RIXS
• Effect of broken symmetry on resonant inelastic x-ray scattering from undoped cuprates

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Local and collective magnetism of EuFe${}_2$As${}_2$
• Presence of magnetic excitations in SmFeAsO
• Reciprocity between local moments and collective magnetic excitations in the phase diagram of BaFe${}_2$(As${}_{1-x}$P${}_x$)${}_2$
• Dispersionless orbital excitations in (Li,Fe)OHFeSe superconductors
• Spin dynamics in NaFeAs and NaFe${}_{0.53}$Cu${}_{0.47}$As probed by resonant inelastic X-ray scattering