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The structural analogue of iron-based superconductors the BaMn$_2$P$_2$ and BaMn$_2$As$_2$ compounds under hydrostatic pressure upto 140 GPa were studied within the framework of DFT+U. The transition from an antiferromagnetic (AFM) insulator to an antiferromagnetic metal is observed under pressure of 6.4 GPa for BaMn$_2$P$_2$ and 8.3 GPa for BaMn$_2$As$_2$. This second order phase transition to the AFM metallic state provides an appropriate normal state for possible superconductivity in these materials. Moreover, a further increase in pressure leads to a series of first order magnetostructural phase transitions between different antiferromagnetic phases, then to a ferromagnetic metal and finally to a nonmagnetic metal. In case of doping these compounds could potentially be a superconductors under pressure (above 6-8 GPa) with critical temperature growing under pressure., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Layered topologically non-trivial and trivial semimetals with AFM-type ordering of magnetic sublattice are known to exhibit a negative magnetoresistance that is well correlated with AFM magnetization changes in a magnetic field. This effect is reported in several experimental studies with EuFe$_2$As$_2$, EuSn$_2$As$_2$, EuSn$_2$P$_2$, etc., where the resistance decreases quadratically with field by about $\delta\rho/\rho \sim 4-6\%$ up to the spin-polarization field. Despite the fact that this effect is well documented experimentally, its theoretical explanation is missing up to date. In this paper we propose a novel theoretical mechanism describing the observed magnetoresistance that does not imply either topological origin of the materials, surface roughness, their potential defect structure, or electron-magnon scattering. We believe, the proposed intrinsic mechanism of magnetoresistance is applicable to a wide class of the layered AFM- ordered semimetals. The theoretically calculated magnetoresistance is qualitatively consistent with experimental data for crystals of various composition., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures

The emergence of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) made it possible to observe electronic dispersion directly as a spectral function map. On the other hand, a spectral function map can be obtained theoretically, for example, in the LDA+DMFT method. The electronic band on such a map is characterized not only by its energy position at a given $k$-point, but also by its width and intensity. To illustrate a way of quantitative comparison of theoretical spectral functions and ARPES data, spectral functions obtained by the LDA+DMFT method are chosen. It is shown that the theoretical spectral functions should take into account a number of experimental features: the photoionization cross section, the experimental energy and angular resolution, as well as the effects of the photohole lifetime arising in the process of photoemission. In this article, we present a robust procedure for taking these experimental features into account by the example of iron-based high-temperature superconductors (HTSC) systems: NaFeAs and FeSe on a SrTiO$_3$ substrate., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

The band structure, density of states, and the Fermi surface of a tungsten oxide WO$_{2.9}$ with idealized crystal structure (ideal octahedra WO$_6$ creating a "square lattice") is obtained within the density functional theory in the generalized gradient approximation. Because of the oxygen vacancies ordering this system is equivalent to the compound W$_{20}$O$_{58}$ (Magn\'{e}li phase), which has 78 atoms in unit cell. We show that 5$d$-orbitals of tungsten atoms located immediately around the voids in the zigzag chains of edge-sharing octahedra give the dominant contribution near the Fermi level. These particular tungsten atoms are responsible of a low-energy properties of the system., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

The band structure, density of states, and the Fermi surface of a recently discovered superconductor, oxygen-deficient tungsten oxide WO$_{2.9}$ that is equivalent to W$_{20}$O$_{58}$, studied within the density functional theory (DFT) in the generalized gradient approximation (GGA). Here we show that despite the extremely complicated structure containing 78 atoms in the unit cell, the low-energy band structure is quite feasible. Fermi level is crossed by no more than 10 bands per one spin projection (and even 9 bands per pseudospin projection when the spin-orbit coupling is considered) originating from the $d$-orbitals of tungsten atoms forming zigzag chains., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

The electronic spectral function of BaNi$_2$As$_2$ is investigated using both the angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and a combined computational scheme of local density approximation together with dynamical mean-field theory (LDA+DMFT). In contrast to well studied isostructural iron arsenide high temperature superconductors, the BaNi$_2$As$_2$ demonstrate weak correlation effects although Ni-3d elections have even lager on-site interaction than Fe-3d ones. LDA+DMFT effective mass enhancement for bands crossing the Fermi level is found to be only about $1.2$ which agrees well with ARPES data. This reduction of the correlation manifestation with respect to iron pnictides comes from the increase of 3d-orbital filling, when going from Fe to Ni. The electron correlations cause remarkable reconstruction of the bare BaNi$_2$As$_2$ LDA band structure below $-0.8$ eV due to self-energy effect. A simplified toy model to understand weakness of correlation effects in BaNi$_2$As$_2$ and to describe the LDA+DMFT self-energy shape is discussed. For more realistic comparison of LDA+DMFT spectral function maps with ARPES data we take into account several experimental features: the photoemission cross-section, the experimental energy and angular resolutions and the photo-hole lifetime effects. Thus presented here LDA+DMFT calculations with experimental features included provide nearly qualitative agreement with ARPES data and assure the observation of a dramatic apparent decrease of the correlation strength compared to the Fe compounds., Comment: 31 pages, 10 figures

We report comprehensive study of physical properties of the binary superconductor compound SnAs. The electronic band structure of SnAs was investigated using both angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) in a wide binding energy range and density functional theory (DFT) within generalized gradient approximation (GGA). The DFT/GGA calculations were done including spin-orbit coupling for both bulk and (111) slab crystal structures. Comparison of the DFT/GGA band dispersions with ARPES data shows that (111) slab much better describes ARPES data than just bulk bands. Superconducting properties of SnAs were studied experimentally by specific heat, magnetic susceptibility, magnetotransport measurements and Andreev reflection spectroscopy. Temperature dependences of the superconducting gap and of the specific heat were found to be well consistent with those expected for the single band BCS superconductors with an isotropic s-wave order parameter. Despite spin-orbit coupling is present in SnAs, our data shows no signatures of a potential unconventional superconductivity, and the characteristic BCS ratio $2\Delta/T_c = 3.48 - 3.73$ is very close to the BCS value in the weak coupling limit., Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures, 1 table

A comparative study of the magnetocaloric effect (MCE) in metals within the single-band Hubbard model on the face-centered cubic (fcc) lattice using both mean-field (Stoner) approximation (MFA) and dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) is done. The MCE is investigated in the case of second order magnetic phase transition from ferromagnet to paramagnet. To ensure presence of itinerant ferromagnetism in the Hubbard model the special case of spectrum parameters generating giant van Hove singularity at the bottom of the band is considered, while the Fermi level $E_{\rm f}$ is in the vinicity of the band bottom. To compare MCE within MFA and DMFT temperature dependence of magnetization, total energy and finally entropy for a set of Coulomb interactions $U$ at zero and finite values of magnetic field $h$ for both methods were performed. Also one of the MCE potentials, isothermal entropy change, as a function of temperature $\Delta S (T)$ for both MFA and DMFT is calculated. In the MFA, the expected maximum value of $\Delta S (T)$ at the Curie temperature $T_C$ ($\Delta S_{\rm max}$) quite significantly decreases while $U$ grows. Similar but much weaker decreasing of $\Delta S_{\rm max}$ is found for DMFT results. The account of local quantum fluctuations results in larger values of $\Delta S_{\rm max}$ within DMFT than within MFA. A peak width of $\Delta S (T)$ at half height is approximately the same for both methods. Another effect of DMFT local quantum fluctuations is the destruction of anomalous Curie temperature $T_C$ dependence on $U$ present in MFA, which is invoked by an effect of giant van Hove singularity. However the relative cooling power (RCP) is very close in DMFT and MFA for the same model parameters and goes down upon $U$ increase., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

In this paper we provide theoretical LDA+DMFT support of recent ARPES experimental observation of the so called hidden hole like band and corresponding hidden Fermi surface sheet near $\Gamma$-point in the K$_{0.62}$Fe$_{1.7}$Se$_2$ compound. To some extent this is a solution to the long-standing riddle of Fermi surface absence around $\Gamma$-point in the K$_x$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_2$ class of iron chalcogenide superconductors. In accordance with the experimental data Fermi surface was found near the $\Gamma$-point within LDA+DMFT calculations. Based on the LDA+DMFT analysis in this paper it is shown that the largest of the experimental Fermi surface sheets is actually formed by a hybrid Fe-3d($xy,xz,yz$) quasiparticle band. It is also shown that the Fermi surface is not a simple circle as DFT-LDA predicts, but has (according to the LDA+DMFT) a more complicated `propeller'-like structure due to correlations and multiorbital nature of the K$_x$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_2$ materials. While the smallest experimental Fermi surface around $\Gamma$-point is in some sense fictitious, since it is formed by the summation of the intensities of the spectral function associated with `propeller' loupes and is not connected to any of quasiparticle bands., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

Electronic spectra of typical single FeSe layer superconductors obtained from ARPES data reveal several puzzles: what is the origin of shallow and the so called "replica" bands near M-point and why the hole-like Fermi surfaces near $\Gamma$-point are absent. Our extensive LDA+DMFT calculations show that correlation effects on Fe-3d states can almost quantitatively reproduce rather complicated band structure, which is observed in ARPES, in close vicinity of the Fermi level for FeSe/STO and K$_x$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_{2}$. Rather unusual shallow electron-like bands around the M(X)-point in the Brillouin zone are well reproduced. However, in FeSe/STO correlation effects are apparently insufficient to eliminate the hole-like Fermi surfaces around the $\Gamma$-point, which are not observed in most ARPES experiments. Detailed analysis of the theoretical and experimental quasiparticle bands with respect to their origin and orbital composition is performed. It is shown that for FeSe/STO system the LDA calculated Fe-3d$_{xy}$ band, renormalized by electronic correlations within DMFT gives the quasiparticle band almost exactly in the energy region of the experimentally observed "replica" quasiparticle band at the M-point. For the case of K$_x$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_{2}$ most bands observed in ARPES can also be understood as correlation renormalized Fe-3d LDA calculated bands, with overall semi-quantitative agreement with our LDA+DMFT calculations. Thus the shallow bands near the M-point are common feature for FeSe-based systems, not just FeSe/STO. We also present some simple estimates of "forward scattering" electron-optical phonon interaction at FeSe/STO interface, showing that it is apparently irrelevant for the formation of "replica" band in this system and significant increase of superconducting $T_c$., Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, 1 table. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1702.00949

We compare electronic structures of single FeSe layer films on SrTiO$_3$ substrate (FeSe/STO) and K$_x$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_{2}$ superconductors obtained from extensive LDA and LDA+DMFT calculations with the results of ARPES experiments. It is demonstrated that correlation effects on Fe-3d states are sufficient in principle to explain the formation of the shallow electron -- like bands at the M(X)-point. However, in FeSe/STO these effects alone are apparently insufficient for the simultaneous elimination of the hole -- like Fermi surface around the $\Gamma$-point which is not observed in ARPES experiments. Detailed comparison of ARPES detected and calculated quasiparticle bands shows reasonable agreement between theory and experiment. Analysis of the bands with respect to their origin and orbital composition shows, that for FeSe/STO system the experimentally observed "replica" quasiparticle band at the M-point (usually attributed to forward scattering interactions with optical phonons in SrTiO$_3$ substrate) can be reasonably understood just as the LDA calculated Fe-3d$_{xy}$ band, renormalized by electronic correlations. The only manifestation of the substrate reduces to lifting the degeneracy between Fe-3d$_{xz}$ and Fe-3d$_{yz}$ bands in the vicinity of M-point. For the case of K$_x$Fe$_{2-y}$Se$_{2}$ most bands observed in ARPES can also be understood as correlation renormalized Fe-3d LDA calculated bands, with overall semi -- quantitative agreement with LDA+DMFT calculations., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures

We review a variety of theoretical and experimental results concerning electronic band structure of superconducting materials based on FeSe monolayers. Three type of systems are analyzed: intercalated FeSe systems A_xFe_2Se_{2-x}S_x and [Li_{1-x}Fe_xOH]FeSe as well as the single FeSe layer films on SrTiO_3 substrate. We present the results of detailed first principle electronic band structure calculations for these systems together with comparison with some experimental ARPES data. The electronic structure of these systems is rather different from that of typical FeAs superconductors, which is quite significant for possible microscopic mechanism of superconductivity. This is reflected in the absence of hole pockets of the Fermi surface at \Gamma-point in Brillouin zone, so that there are no "nesting" properties of different Fermi surface pockets. LDA+DMFT calculations show that correlation effects on Fe-3d states in the single FeSe layer are not that strong as in most of FeAs systems. As a result, at present there is no theoretical understanding of the formation of rather "shallow" electronic bands at M points. LDA calculations show that the main difference in electronic structure of FeSe monolayer on SrTiO_3 substrate from isolated FeSe layer is the presence of the band of O-2p surface states of TiO_2 layer on the Fermi level together with Fe-3d states, which may be important for understanding the enhanced T_c values in this system. We briefly discuss the implications of our results for microscopic models of superconductivity., Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, minor typos corrected

We present the results of extended theoretical LDA+DMFT calculations for a new iron-pnictide high temperature superconductor NaFeAs compared with the recent high quality angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) experiments on this system [1]. The universal manifestation of correlation effects in iron-pnictides is narrowing of conducting bands near the Fermi level. Our calculations demonstrate that for NaFeAs the effective mass is renormalized on average by a factor of the order of 3, in good agreement with ARPES data. This is essentially due to correlation effects on Fe-3d orbitals only and no additional interactions with with any kind of Boson modes, as suggested in [1], are necessary to describe the experiment. Also we show that ARPES data taken at about 160 eV beam energy most probably corresponds to $k_z=\pi$ Brillouin zone boundary, while ARPES data measured at about 80 eV beam energy rather represents $k_z=0$. Contributions of different Fe-3d orbitals into spectral function map are also discussed., Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures

We present detailed LDA'+DMFT investigation of doping dependence of correlation effects in novel K{1-x}Fe{2-y}Se2 superconductor. Calculations were performed at four different hole doping levels, starting from hypothetical stoichiometric composition with total number of electrons equal to 29 per unit cell through 28 and 27.2 electrons towards the case of 26.52, which corresponds to chemical composition K{0.76}Fe{1.72}Se2 studied in recent ARPES experiments. In general case the increase of hole doping leads to quasiparticle bands in wide energy window +/-2 eV around the Fermi level becoming more broadened by lifetime effects, while correlation induced compression of Fe-3d LDA' bandwidths stays almost the same and of the order of ~1.3 for all hole concentrations. However close to the Fermi level situation is more complicated. Here in the energy interval from -1.0 eV to 0.4 eV the bare Fe-3d LDA' bands are compressed by significantly larger renormalization factors up to 5 with hole doping increase, while the value of Coulomb interaction remains the same. This fact manifests the increase of correlation effects with hole doping in K{1-x}Fe{2-y}Se2 system. Moreover in contrast to typical pnictides K{1-x}Fe{2-y}Se2 does not have well defined quasiparticle bands on the Fermi leves but pseudogap like "dark" region instead. We also find that with the growth of hole doping Fe-3d orbitals of various symmetries are affected by correlations in a different way in different parts of Brillouin zone. To illustrate this we determine quasiparticle mass renormalization factors and energy shifts, which transform the bare Fe-3d LDA' bands of various symmetries into LDA'+DMFT quasiparticle bands. These renormalization factors effectively mimic more complicated energy dependent self-energy effects and can be used to analyze the available ARPES data., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 table

We investigate electronic structure of the new iron chalcogenide high temperature superconductor K{1-x}Fe{2-y}Se2 (hole doped case with x=0.24, y=0.28) in the normal phase using the novel LDA'+DMFT computational approach. We show that this iron chalcogenide is more correlated in a sense of bandwidth renormalization (energy scale compression by factor about 5 in the interval +/-1.5 eV), than typical iron pnictides (compression factor about 2), though the Coulomb interaction strength is almost the same in both families. Our results for spectral densities are in general agreement with recent ARPES data on this system. It is found that all Fe-3d(t2g) bands crossing the Fermi level have equal renormalization, in contrast to some previous interpretations. Electronic states at the Fermi level are of predominantly xy symmetry. Also we show that LDA'+DMFT results are in better agreement with experimental spectral function maps, than the results of conventional LDA+DMFT. Finally we make predictions for photoemission spectra lineshape for K{0.76}Fe{1.72}Se2., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

We discuss the recently proposed LDA'+DMFT approach providing consistent parameter free treatment of the so called double counting problem arising within the LDA+DMFT hybrid computational method for realistic strongly correlated materials. In this approach the local exchange-correlation portion of electron-electron interaction is excluded from self consistent LDA calculations for strongly correlated electronic shells, e.g. d-states of transition metal compounds. Then the corresponding double counting term in LDA+DMFT Hamiltonian is consistently set in the local Hartree (fully localized limit - FLL) form of the Hubbard model interaction term. We present the results of extensive LDA'+DMFT calculations of densities of states, spectral densities and optical conductivity for most typical representatives of two wide classes of strongly correlated systems in paramagnetic phase: charge transfer insulators (MnO, CoO and NiO) and strongly correlated metals (SrVO3 and Sr2RuO4). It is shown that for NiO and CoO systems LDA'+DMFT qualitatively improves the conventional LDA+DMFT results with FLL type of double counting, where CoO and NiO were obtained to be metals. We also include in our calculations transition metal 4s-states located near the Fermi level missed in previous LDA+DMFT studies of these monooxides. General agreement with optical and X-ray experiments is obtained. For strongly correlated metals LDA$^\prime$+DMFT results agree well with earlier LDA+DMFT calculations and existing experiments. However, in general LDA'+DMFT results give better quantitative agreement with experimental data for band gap sizes and oxygen states positions, as compared to the conventional LDA+DMFT., Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, 1 table. In v2 there some additional clarifications are included

We present a consistent way of treating a double counting problem unavoidably arising within the LDA+DMFT combined approach to realistic calculations of electronic structure of strongly correlated systems. The main obstacle here is the absence of systematic (e.g. diagrammatic) way to express LDA (local density approximation) contribution to exchange correlation energy appearing in the density functional theory. It is not clear then, which part of interaction entering DMFT (dynamical mean-field theory) is already taken into account through LDA calculations. Because of that, up to now there is no accepted unique expression for the double counting correction in LDA+DMFT. To avoid this problem we propose here the consistent LDA'+DMFT approach, where LDA exchange correlation contribution is explicitly excluded for correlated states (bands) during self-consistent band structure calculations. What is left out of Coulomb interaction for those strongly correlated states (bands) is its non-local part, which is not included in DMFT, and the local Hartree like contribution. Then the double counting correction is uniquely reduced to the local Hartree contribution. Correlations for strongly correlated states are then directly accounted for via the standard DMFT. We further test the consistent LDA'+DMFT scheme and compare it with conventional LDA+DMFT calculating the electronic structure of NiO. Opposite to the conventional LDA+DMFT our consistent LDA'+DMFT approach unambiguously produces the insulating band structure in agreement with experiments., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

The electron-doped Pr(2-x)Ce(x)CuO(4) (PCCO) compound in the pseudogap regime (x~0.15) was investigated using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and the generalized dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT) with the k-dependent self-energy (LDA+DMFT+\Sigma_k). Model parameters (hopping integral values and local Coulomb interaction strength) for the effective one-band Hubbard model were calculated by the local density approximation (LDA) with numerical renormalization group method (NRG) employed as an "impurity solver" in DMFT computations. An "external" k-dependent self-energy \Sigma_k was used to describe interaction of correlated conducting electrons with short-range antiferromagnetic (AFM) pseudogap fluctuations. Both experimental and theoretical spectral functions and Fermi surfaces (FS) were obtained and compared demonstrating good semiquantitative agreement. For both experiment and theory normal state spectra of nearly optimally doped PCCO show clear evidence for a pseudogap state with AFM-like nature. Namely, folding of quasiparticle bands as well as presence of the "hot spots" and "Fermi arcs" were observed., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, as accepted to PRB Rapid Communications. Title is changed by Editors