Jahn-Teller effect and electron correlation in manganites

Abstract

Jahn-Teller (JT) effect both in the absence and presence of the strong Coulomb correlation is studied theoretically focusing on the reduction $\Delta K$ of the kinetic energy gain which is directly related to the spin wave stiffness. Without the Coulomb interaction, the perturbative analysis gives $\Delta K / (g^2/M\Omega^2) \cong 0.05-0.13$ depending on the electron number [$g$: electron-phonon(el-ph) coupling constant, $M$: mass of the oxygen atom, $\Omega$: frequency of the phonon]. Although there occurs many channels of the JT el-ph interaction in the multiband system, the final results of $\Delta K$ roughly scales with the density of states at the Fermi energy. In the limit of strong electron correlation, the magnitude of the orbital polarization saturate and the relevant degrees of freedom are the direction (phase) of it. An effective action is derived for the phase variable including the effect of the JT interaction. In this limit, JT interaction is {\it{enhanced}} compared with the non-interacting case, and $\Delta K$ is given by the lattice relaxation energy $E_{L}$ for the localized electrons, although the electrons remains itinerant. Discussion on experiments are given based on these theoretical results.