Magnetic excitations and phonons simultaneously studied by resonant inelastic x-ray scattering in optimally doped Bi$_{1.5}$Pb$_{0.55}$Sr$_{1.6}$La$_{0.4}$CuO$_{6+delta}$

Magnetic excitations in the optimally doped high-$T_mathrm{c}$ superconductor Bi$_{1.5}$Pb$_{0.55}$Sr$_{1.6}$La$_{0.4}$CuO$_{6+delta}$ (OP-Bi2201, $T_mathrm{c}simeq 34$ K) are investigated by Cu $L_3$ edge resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS), below and above the pseudogap opening temperature. At both temperatures the broad spectral distribution disperses along the (1,0) direction up to $sim$350~meV at zone boundary, similarly to other hole-doped cuprates. However, above $sim$0.22 reciprocal lattice units, we observe a concurrent intensity decrease for magnetic excitations and quasi-elastic signals with weak temperature dependence. This anomaly seems to indicate a coupling between magnetic, lattice and charge modes in this compound. We also compare the magnetic excitation spectra near the anti-nodal zone boundary in the single layer OP-Bi2201 and in the bi-layer optimally doped Bi$_{1.5}$Pb$_{0.6}$Sr$_{1.54}$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+delta}$ (OP-Bi2212, $T_mathrm{c}simeq96$ K). The strong similarities in the paramagnon dispersion and in their energy at zone boundary indicate that the strength of the super-exchange interaction and the short-range magnetic correlation cannot be directly related to $T_mathrm{c}$, not even within the same family of cuprates.

Temperature dependence of iron local magnetic moment in phase-separated superconducting chalcogenide

We have studied local magnetic moment and electronic phase separation in superconducting K$_{x}$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_2$ by x-ray emission and absorption spectroscopy. Detailed temperature dependent measurements at the Fe K-edge have revealed coexisting electronic phases and their correlation with the transport properties. By cooling down, the local magnetic moment of Fe shows a sharp drop across the superconducting transition temperature (T$_c$) and the coexisting phases exchange spectral weights with the low spin state gaining intensity at the expense of the higher spin state. After annealing the sample across the iron-vacancy order temperature, the system does not recover the initial state and the spectral weight anomaly at T$_c$ as well as superconductivity disappear. The results clearly underline that the coexistence of the low spin and high spin phases and the transitions between them provide unusual magnetic fluctuations and have a fundamental role in the superconducting mechanism of electronically inhomogeneous K$_{x}$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_2$ system.

CaIrO3: a Spin-Orbit Mott Insulator Beyond the jeff = 1/2 Ground State

In CaIrO3 electronic correlation, spin-orbit coupling, and tetragonal crystal field splitting are predicted to be of comparable strength. However, the nature of its ground state is still object of debate, with contradictory experimental and theoretical results. We probe the ground state of CaIrO3 and assess the effective tetragonal crystal field splitting and spin-orbit coupling at play in this system by means of resonant inelastic x-ray scattering. We conclude that insulating CaIrO3 is not a jeff = 1/2 iridate and discuss the consequences of our finding to the interpretation of previous experiments. In particular, we clarify how the Mott insulating state in iridates can be readily extended beyond the jeff = 1/2 ground state.

Bimagnon studies in cuprates with Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering at the O K edge. II - The doping effect in La2-xSrxCuO4

We present RIXS data at O K edge from La2-xSrxCuO4 vs. doping between x=0.10 and x=0.22 with attention to the magnetic excitations in the Mid-Infrared region. The sampling done by RIXS is the same as in the undoped cuprates provided the excitation is at the first pre-peak induced by doping. Note that this excitation energy is about 1.5 eV lower than that needed to see bimagnons in the parent compound. This approach allows the study of the upper region of the bimagnon continuum around 450 meV within about one third of the Brilluoin Zone around Gamma. The results show the presence of damped bimagnons and of higher even order spin excitations with almost constant spectral weight at all the dopings explored here. The implications on high Tc studies are briefly addressed.

Energy and symmetry of $dd$ excitations in undoped layered cuprates measured by Cu $L_3$ resonant inelastic x-ray scattering

We measured high resolution Cu $L_3$ edge resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) of the undoped cuprates La$_2$CuO$_4$, Sr$_2$CuO$_2$Cl$_2$, CaCuO$_2$ and NdBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_6$. The dominant spectral features were assigned to $dd$ excitations and we extensively studied their polarization and scattering geometry dependence. In a pure ionic picture, we calculated the theoretical cross sections for those excitations and used them to fit the experimental data with excellent agreement. By doing so, we were able to determine the energy and symmetry of Cu-3$d$ states for the four systems with unprecedented accuracy and confidence. The values of the effective parameters could be obtained for the single ion crystal field model but not for a simple two-dimensional cluster model. The firm experimental assessment of $dd$ excitation energies carries important consequences for the physics of high $T_c$ superconductors. On one hand, having found that the minimum energy of orbital excitation is always $geq 1.4$ eV, i.e., well above the mid-infrared spectral range, leaves to magnetic excitations (up to 300 meV) a major role in Cooper pairing in cuprates. On the other hand, it has become possible to study quantitatively the effective influence of $dd$ excitations on the superconducting gap in cuprates.

Production of Light Higgs Pairs in 2-Higgs Doublet Models via the Higgs-strahlung Process at the LHC

At the Large Hadron Collider, we prove the feasibility to detect pair production of the lightest CP-even Higgs boson h of a Type II 2-Higgs Doublet Model through the process q bar q --> Vhh (Higgs-strahlung, V=W+-,Z), in presence of two h --> b bar b decays. We also show that, through such production and decay channels, one has direct access to the following Higgs self-couplings, thus enabling one to distinguish between a standard and the Supersymmetric version of the above model: lambda_(Hhh) -- which constrains the form of the Higgs potential -- as well as lambda_(W+- H+- h) and lambda_(Z A h) -- which are required by gauge invariance. Unfortunately, such claims cannot be extended to the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, where the extraction of the same signals is impossible.

Measurement of magnetic excitations in the two-dimensional antiferromagnetic Sr2CuO2Cl2 insulator using resonant x-ray scattering:Evidence for extended interactions

Using high-resolution resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS), we performed a momentum-resolved study of magnetic excitations in the model spin-1/2 2D antiferromagnetic insulator Sr_2CuCl_2O_2. We identify both a single-spin-wave feature and a multi-magnon continuum, and show that the X-ray polarization can be used to distinguish these two contributions in the cross-section. The spin-waves display a large (70 meV) dispersion between the zone-boundary points ($pi$,0) and ($pi$/2,$pi$/2). Employing an extended $t$-$t$-$t$-$U$ one-band Hubbard model, we find significant electronic hopping beyond nearest-neighbor Cu ions. We conclude that sizeable extended magnetic interactions are present in scoc{} and probably important in all undoped cuprates.

Combined analysis of Z -> t tbar and Z -> t tbar j production for vector resonance searches at LHC

We have implemented a code for Z + n jets production in ALPGEN, with Z decays into several final states, including l+ l- and t tbar. The MLM prescription is used for matching the matrix element with the parton shower, including in this way the leading soft and collinear corrections. In order to demonstrate its capabilities, we perform a combined analysis of Z -> t tbar and Z -> t tbar j production for a heavy leptophobic gauge boson. It is found that the effect of the extra jet cannot only be accounted for by a K factor multiplying the leading-order cross section. In fact, the combined analysis for Z -> t tbar and Z -> t tbar j presented improves the statistical significance of the signal by 25% (8.55 sigma versus 6.77 sigma for a Z mass of 1 TeV), compared with the results of an inclusive analysis carried out on the same sample of t tbar + t tbar j events.

A Fully Numerical Approach to One-Loop Amplitudes

We suggest a new approach for the automatic and fully numerical evaluation of one-loop scattering amplitudes in perturbative quantum field theory. We use suitably formulated dispersion relations to perform the calculation as a convolution of tree-level amplitudes. This allows to take advantage of the iterative numerical algorithms for the evaluation of leading order matrix elements.

Vector-Boson Production of Light Higgs Pairs in 2-Higgs Doublet Models

At the Large Hadron Collider, we prove the feasibility to detect pair production of the lightest CP-even Higgs boson $h$ of Type II 2-Higgs Doublet Models through $q q^{()}to q q^{()} {hh}$ (vector-boson fusion). We also show that, through the $hhto 4b$ decay channel in presence of heavy-flavour tagging, further exploiting forward/backward jet sampling, one has direct access to the $lambda_{Hhh}$ triple Higgs coupling -- which constrains the form of the Higgs potential.