Theory of bulk and surface quasiparticle spectra for Fe, Co, and Ni

The correlated quasiparticle band structure of iron, cobalt, and nickel is investigated within the dynamical mean-field theory formalism using the recently developed full-potential linear-muffin-tin-orbital-based local-density approximation plus dynamical mean-field theory (LDA+DMFT) code. Detailed analysis of the calculated electron self-energy, density of states, and the spectral density is presented for these metals. It has been found that all these elements show strong correlation effects for majority-spin electrons, such as strong damping of quasiparticles and formation of a satellite state below the bottom of d bands. In particular, our work clearly predicts the existence of a photoemission satellite for bcc iron. The LDA+DMFT data for fcc nickel and cobalt (111) surfaces and bcc iron (001) surface are also presented. The electron self-energy is found to depend strongly on the number of nearest neighbors, and it practically reaches the bulk value already in the second layer from the surface. The dependence of correlation effects on the dimensionality of the problem is also discussed.