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We revisit the problem that relevant parts of band structures for a given cell choice can reflect exact or approximate higher symmetries of subsystems in the cell and can therefore be significantly simplified by an unfolding procedure that recovers the higher symmetry. We show that band-structure unfolding can be understood as projection onto induced irreducible representations of a group obtained by extending the original group of translations with a number of additional symmetry operations. The resulting framework allows us to define a generalized unfolding procedure that includes the point group operations and can be applied to any quantity in the reciprocal space. The unfolding of the Brillouin zone follows naturally from the properties of the induced irreducible representations. In this context, we also introduce a procedure to derive tight-binding models of reduced dimensionality by making use of point group symmetries. Further, we show that careful consideration of unfolding has important consequences on the interpretation of angle-resolved photoemission experiments. Finally, we apply the unfolding procedure to various representative examples of Fe-based superconductor compounds and show that the one-iron picture arises as an irreducible representation of the glide-reflection group, and we comment on the consequences for the interpretation of one-iron versus two-iron Brillouin zone representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the orthorhombic magnetically ordered phase, we investigate the effects of uniaxial tensile and compressive stresses along a, b, and the diagonal a + b directions in BaFe2As2 and CaFe2As2 in the framework of ab initio density functional theory (DFT) and a phenomonological Ginzburg-Landau model. While-contrary to the application of hydrostatic or c-axis uniaxial pressure-both systems remain in the orthorhombic phase with a pressure-dependent nonzero magnetic moment, we observe a sign-changing jump in the orthorhombicity at a critical uniaxial pressure, accompanied by a reversal of the orbital occupancy and a switch between the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic directions. Our Ginzburg-Landau analysis reveals that this behavior is a direct consequence of the competition between the intrinsic magneto-elastic coupling of the system and the applied compressive stress, which helps the system to overcome the energy barrier between the two possible magneto-elastic ground states. Our results shed light on the mechanisms involved in the detwinning process of an orthorhombic iron-pnictide crystal and on the changes in the magnetic properties of a system under uniaxial stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present uniaxial pressure structural relaxations for CaFe2As2 and BaFe2As2 within density functional theory and compare them with calculations under hydrostatic pressure as well as available experimental results. We find that CaFe2As2 shows a unique phase transition from a magnetic orthorhombic phase to a nonmagnetic collapsed tetragonal phase for both pressure conditions and no indication of a tetragonal phase is observed at intermediate uniaxial pressures. In contrast, BaFe2As2 shows for both pressure conditions two phase transitions from a magnetic orthorhombic to a collapsed tetragonal phase through an intermediate nonmagnetic tetragonal phase. We find that the critical transition pressures under uniaxial conditions are much lower than those under hydrostatic conditions manifesting the high sensitivity of the systems to uniaxial stress. We discuss the origin of this sensitivity and its relation to experimental observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations to study the electronic structure of CaFe2As2 in the collapsed tetragonal (CT) phase. This unusual phase of iron arsenic high-temperature superconductors was hard to measure as it exists only under pressure. By inducing internal strain, via the post growth thermal treatment of single crystals, we were able to stabilize the CT phase at ambient pressure. We find significant differences in the Fermi surface topology and band dispersion data from the more common orthorhombic-antiferromagnetic or tetragonal-paramagnetic phases, consistent with electronic structure calculations. The top of the hole bands sinks below the Fermi level, which destroys the nesting present in parent phases. The absence of nesting in this phase, along with an apparent loss of Fe magnetic moment, are now clearly experimentally correlated with the lack of superconductivity in this phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]