Magnetic configurations and excitations in high-$T_c$ multilayer nickelates

Abstract

We investigate the magnetic ground states and transverse spin excitations of bilayer and trilayer nickelates within a multi-orbital itinerant framework. For the bilayer system, although Hartree-Fock calculations slightly favor a double-stripe order, the calculated excitation spectrum of the single-stripe state, characterized by an anisotropic low-energy cone at $Q_{\text{BL}}$ and isotropic high-energy excitations near $\Gamma$, exhibits good qualitative agreement with recent RIXS and neutron scattering experiments. We further identify mirror-even optical interlayer modes at $Q_{\text{BL}}$ whose energies match the mirror-odd modes at $\Gamma$. For the trilayer system, both mirror-odd and mirror-even spin-density-wave states can be stabilized near $Q_{\text{TL}}$, with the mirror-odd state lower in energy in the parameter regime studied. The mirror-odd state hosts an additional nearly gapless mode dominated by the middle layer, while the mirror-even state contains only one acoustic branch together with two gapped optical modes. Comparison with available RIXS data favors the mirror-odd spin-density-wave scenario. Our results show that magnetic excitations provide a sensitive probe of the magnetic order and support a common itinerant origin of magnetism in multilayer nickelates.

10 pages, 5 figures