Resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) is used increasingly for characterizing low-energy collective excitations in materials. RIXS is a powerful probe, which often requires sophisticated theoretical descriptions to interpret the data. In particular, the need for accurate theories describing the influence of electron-phonon (e-p) coupling on RIXS spectra is becoming timely, as instrument resolution improves and this energy regime is rapidly becoming accessible. To date, only rather exploratory theoretical work has been carried out for such problems. We begin to bridge this gap by proposing a versatile variational approximation for calculating RIXS spectra in weakly doped materials, for a variety of models with diverse e-p couplings. Here, we illustrate some of its potential by studying the role of electron mobility, which is completely neglected in the widely used local approximation based on Lang-Firsov theory. Assuming that the e-p coupling is of the simplest, Holstein type, we discuss the regimes where the local approximation fails, and demonstrate that its improper use may grossly underestimate the e-p coupling strength.

We develop an eg orbital, t-J-like model of a single charge doped into a two-dimensional plane with ferromagnetic spin order and alternating orbital order, and present its solution by Green's functions in the variational approximation framework. The model is designed to represent the orbital physics within ferromagnetic (a, b) planes of KCuF3 and K2CuF4. The variational approximation (VA) relies on the systematic generation of equations of motion for the Green's function, taking into account the real-space constraints coming from the exclusion of doubly occupied sites. This method is compared to the firmly established self-consistent Born approximation, and to the variational cluster approximation (VCA) which relies on the itinerant regime of the model. We find that the present variational approximation captures the essential aspects of the spectral weight distribution of the coherent quasiparticle state and gives a result similar to the VCA, while also reproducing well the momentum dependence of the spectral moments. In contrast, the spectral function obtained within the self-consistent Born approximation is more incoherent and its quasiparticle is heavier, at strong effective couplings, than observed with VCA and VA. arXiv:1612.08009v1 [cond-mat.str-el]

We present the exact spectral function for a single oxygen hole with spin opposite to ferromagnetic order within a one-dimensional CuO3-like spin chain. We find that local Kondo-like exchange interaction generates five different states in the strong coupling regime. It stabilizes a spin polaron which is a bound state of a moving charge dressed by magnon excitations, with essentially the same dispersion as predicted by mean field theory. We then examine in detail the evolution of the spectral function for increasing strength of the hole-magnon interaction. We also demonstrate that the s and p symmetry of orbital states in the conduction band are essentially equivalent to each other and find that the simplified models do not suffice to reproduce subtle aspects of hole-magnon coupling in the charge-transfer model. -Published in: Phys. Rev. B 88, 115132 (2013).