Coherent band excitations in CePd<sub>3</sub>: A comparison of neutron scattering and ab initio theory.

Goremychkin, Eugene A; Park, Hyowon; Osborn, Raymond; Rosenkranz, Stephan; Castellan, John-Paul; Fanelli, Victor R; Christianson, Andrew D; Stone, Matthew B et al. · Science · 2018

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

In common with many strongly correlated electron systems, intermediate valence compounds are believed to display a crossover from a high-temperature regime of incoherently fluctuating local moments to a low-temperature regime of coherent hybridized bands. We show that inelastic neutron scattering measurements of the dynamic magnetic susceptibility of CePd<sub>3</sub> provides a benchmark for ab initio calculations based on dynamical mean field theory. The magnetic response is strongly momentum dependent thanks to the formation of coherent f-electron bands at low temperature, with an amplitude that is strongly enhanced by local particle-hole interactions. The agreement between experiment and theory shows that we have a robust first-principles understanding of the temperature dependence of f-electron coherence.