Fingerprints of Orbital Physics in Magnetic Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method using magnetic RIXS to experimentally determine orbital occupancies in strongly correlated transition metal compounds, overcoming limitations of neutron scattering.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to access orbital degrees of freedom via RIXS, linking excitation intensities to orbital symmetry.

Findings

RIXS intensity depends on orbital symmetry

Method enables experimental access to orbital occupancies

Enhances understanding of orbital physics in correlated materials

Abstract

Orbital degrees of freedom play a major role in the physics of many strongly correlated transition metal compounds. However, they are still very difficult to access experimentally, in particular by neutron scattering. We propose here how to reveal orbital occupancies of the system ground state by magnetic resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS). This is possible because, unlike in neutron scattering, the intensity of the magnetic excitations in RIXS depends essentially on the symmetry of the orbitals where the spins are in.