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We measured high resolution Cu $L_3$ edge resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) of the undoped cuprates La$_2$CuO$_4$, Sr$_2$CuO$_2$Cl$_2$, CaCuO$_2$ and NdBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_6$. The dominant spectral features were assigned to $dd$ excitations and we extensively studied their polarization and scattering geometry dependence. In a pure ionic picture, we calculated the theoretical cross sections for those excitations and used them to fit the experimental data with excellent agreement. By doing so, we were able to determine the energy and symmetry of Cu-3$d$ states for the four systems with unprecedented accuracy and confidence. The values of the effective parameters could be obtained for the single ion crystal field model but not for a simple two-dimensional cluster model. The firm experimental assessment of $dd$ excitation energies carries important consequences for the physics of high $T_c$ superconductors. On one hand, having found that the minimum energy of orbital excitation is always $\geq 1.4$ eV, i.e., well above the mid-infrared spectral range, leaves to magnetic excitations (up to 300 meV) a major role in Cooper pairing in cuprates. On the other hand, it has become possible to study quantitatively the effective influence of $dd$ excitations on the superconducting gap in cuprates., 22 pages, 11 figures, 1 table

International audience; X-ray magnetic circular dichroism provides evidence of an out-of-plane spin moment in undoped and doped cuprates. In La2CuO4 this moment is related to the canting of the antiferromagnetically ordered Cu2+ spins caused by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction within the CuO2 planes. This canting gives rise to the well-known weak ferromagnetism in high magnetic fields. We find a similar behavior in doped compounds, both in the normal and in the superconducting state, but with a different temperature dependence typical of paramagnetic systems. This result suggests that, together with short-range in-plane antiferromagnetic correlations, the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction survives up to optimal doping and in the superconducting state.

The origin of the apparent discrepancies between the one-particle spectra of the Hubbard and t-J models is revealed: Wavefunction corrections, in addition to the three-site terms, should supplement the bare t-J. In this way a quantitative agreement between the two models is obtained, even for the intermediate-$U$ values appropriate for the high-Tc cuprate superconductors. Numerical results for clusters of up to 20 sites are presented. The momentum dependence of the observed intensities in the photoemission spectra of Sr2CuO2Cl2 are well described by this complete strong-coupling approach., 4 two-column RevTeX pages, including 4 Postscript figures. Uses epsf. Accepted for publication in Physical Review B, Rapid Communication

We present an exact diagonalization study of the single particle spectral function in the so-called t-t'-t''-J model in 2D. As a key result, we find that unlike the `pure' t-J model, hole doping leads to a major reconstruction of the quasiparticle band structure near (pi,0): whereas for the undoped system the quasiparticle states near (pi,0) are deep below the top of the band at (pi/2,pi/2), hole doping shifts these states up to E_F, resulting in extended flat band regions close to E_F and around (pi,0). This strong doping-induced deformation can be directly compared to angle resolved photoemission results on Sr_2 Cu Cl_2 O_2, underdoped Bi2212 and optimally doped Bi2212. We propose the interplay of long range hopping and decreasing spin correlations as the mechanism of this deformation., 4 pages, Revtex, with 4 embedded eps figures. Hardcopies of figures (or the entire manuscript) can be obtained by e-mail request to eder@vsf1.phys.rug.nl