Abstract
The properties of condensed matter are determined by single-particle and collective excitations and their mutual interactions. These quantum-mechanical excitations are characterized by an energy, E, and a momentum, ℏk, which are related through their dispersion, Ek. The coupling of excitations may lead to abrupt changes (kinks) in the slope of the dispersion. Kinks thus carry important information about the internal degrees of freedom of a many-body system and their effective interaction. Here, we report a novel, purely electronic mechanism leading to kinks, which is not related to any coupling of excitations. Namely, kinks are predicted for any strongly correlated metal whose spectral function shows a three-peak structure with well-separated Hubbard subbands and a central peak, as observed, for example, in transition-metal oxides. These kinks can appear at energies as high as a few hundred millielectron volts, as found in recent spectroscopy experiments on high-temperature superconductors1,2,3,4 and other transition-metal oxides5,6,7,8. Our theory determines not only the position of the kinks but also the range of validity of Fermi-liquid theory.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge discussions with V. I. Anisimov, R. Bulla, J. Fink, A. Fujimori and D. Manske. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through Sonderforschungsbereiche 484 (K.B., M.K., D.V.) and 602 (T.P.) and the Emmy-Noether program (K.H.), and in part by the Russian Basic Research foundation grants 05-02-16301, 05-02-17244, 06-02-90537 as well as by the RAS Programs ‘Quantum macrophysics’ and ‘Strongly correlated electrons in semiconductors, metals, superconductors and magnetic materials’, Dynasty Foundation, Grant of President of Russia MK-2118.2005.02, interdisciplinary grant UB-SB RAS (I.N.). We thank the John von Neumann Institute for Computing, Forschungszentrum Jülich and the Norddeutsche Verbund für Hoch- und Höchstleistungsrechnen for computing time.
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Byczuk, K., Kollar, M., Held, K. et al. Kinks in the dispersion of strongly correlated electrons. Nature Phys 3, 168–171 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys538
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys538
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