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4$f$ crystal field ground state of the strongly correlated topological insulator SmB$_6$

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 نشر من قبل Andrea Severing
 تاريخ النشر 2017
  مجال البحث فيزياء
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We investigated the crystal-electric field ground state of the 4$f$ manifold in the strongly correlated topological insulator SmB$_6$ using core level non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (NIXS). The directional dependence of the scattering function that arises from higher multipole transitions establishes unambiguously that the $Gamma_8$ quartet state of the Sm $f^5$ $J$=$5/2$ configuration governs the ground-state symmetry and hence the topological properties of SmB$_6$. Our findings contradict the results of density functional calculations reported so far.

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