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Real-space Electron Dynamics in Beryllium via Inelastic X-ray Scattering

ORAL

Abstract

Electrons in solids are correlated in space and time because of the Coulomb interaction between them and the Pauli exclusion principle. Although density functional theory (DFT) has been highly successful, the exchange-correlation hole that forms the basis for DFT has not been well studied by the experiment. We measured real-space dynamic electron correlation for the first time using the dynamic-pair distribution function, g(r, E), which describes spatial electron correlation as a function of excitation energy. The g(r, E), was derived by Fourier transforming the dynamic structure function, S(Q, E), over momentum transfer Q, with, S(Q, E), measured using medium-resolution non-resonant inelastic X-ray scattering on polycrystalline beryllium. Our results show that the size of the exchange-correlation hole is 2 Å, as expected. Surprisingly, we found that the, g(r, E), at the plasmon energy of around 20 eV differs from the rest; the exchange-correlation hole extends to about 5 Å for the plasmon, indicating that the dynamic state significantly affects electron correlation.

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Presenters

  • Rudra B Bista

    Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University Tennessee, Knoxville, USA.

Authors

  • Rudra B Bista

    Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University Tennessee, Knoxville, USA.

  • Takeshi Egami

    Department of Physics, and Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA., University of Tennessee

  • Yuya Shinohara

    Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA., Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  • Wojciech Dmowski

    Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA., University of Tennessee, Knoxville

  • Chae Woo Ryu

    Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Hongik University, Seoul 04066, South Korea., Hongik University

  • Mary Upton

    X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, USA., Argonne National Laboratory

  • Jung Ho Kim

    X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, USA., ARGONNE NATIONAL LAB, Argonne National Laboratory