Theory of ARPES intensities from the CuO$_2$ plane

Abstract

We present a theory for the photon energy and polarization dependence of ARPES intensities from the CuO$_2$ plane in the framework of strong correlation models. We show that for electric field vector in the CuO$_2$ plane the `radiation characteristics' of the $O$ $2p_\sigma$ and $Cu$ $3d_{x^2-y^2}$ orbitals are strongly peaked along the CuO$_2$ plane, i.e. most photoelectrons are emitted at grazing angles. This suggests that surface states play an important role in the observed ARPES spectra, consistent with recent data from Sr$_2$CuCl$_2$O$_2$. We show that a combination of surface state dispersion and Fano resonance between surface state and the continuum of LEED-states may produce a precipitous drop in the observed photoelectron current as a function of in-plane momentum, which may well mimic a Fermi-surface crossing. This effect may explain the simultaneous `observation' of a hole-like and an electron-like Fermi surfaces in Bi2212 at different photon energies. We show that by suitable choice of photon polarization one can on one hand `focus' the radiation characteristics of the in-plane orbitals towards the detector and on the other hand make the interference between partial waves from different orbitals `more constructive'.