Abstract
We develop a formalism to study the resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) response in metals based on the diagrammatic expansion for its cross section. The standard approach to the solution of the RIXS problem relies on two key approximations: short-range potentials and noninteracting conduction electrons. However, these approximations are inaccurate for charged particles in metals, where the long-range Coulomb interaction and dynamic screening effects are very important. In this work, we study how to extract important information about collective excitations in the Coulomb plasma, plasmons, and electron-hole pairs from RIXS data. We find that single- and multi-plasmon excitations can easily be distinguished by positions of the corresponding peaks, singularities, and their intensities. We also discuss the hybrid processes, where plasmon emission is accompanied by excitation of electron-hole pairs and study how they manifest themselves.
- Received 11 June 2019
- Revised 7 October 2019
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.1.033093
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.
Published by the American Physical Society