Spectroscopic Determination of the Atomic f-Electron Symmetry Underlying Hidden Order in URu2Si2

Published

June 9, 2015

Author(s)

L. Andrew Wray, Jonathan Denlinger, Shih-Wen Huang, Haowei He, Nicholas Butch, M. Brian Maple, Zahid Hussain, Yi-De Chuang

Abstract

The hidden order state of URu6d2^Si₂ has been a subject of intense speculation for more than 25 years, but there is still no clear consensus on what degrees of freedom are important for a low temperature physical model. Here, X-ray absorption spectroscopy and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering at the uranium O-edge are used to resolve features representing the energetics and correlated wavefunction symmetry of electrons on uranium. The resonance profiles of both techniques show that uranium f-electrons predominantly project on the 5f² J=4 symmetry basis. Minimal dichroic contrast is observed, revealing a surprisingly isotropic f-electron wavefunction relative to prevalent theoretical models.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Volume

114

Issue

23

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

RIXS, XAS, strongly correlated electrons

Citation

Wray, L. , Denlinger, J. , Huang, S. , He, H. , Butch, N. , Maple, M. , Hussain, Z. and Chuang, Y. (2015), Spectroscopic Determination of the Atomic f-Electron Symmetry Underlying Hidden Order in URu₂Si₂, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=916415 (Accessed May 5, 2024)