Orbital dynamics: The origin of the anomalous optical spectra in ferromagnetic manganites

Abstract

We discuss the role of orbital degeneracy in the transport properties of perovskite manganites, focusing in particular on the optical conductivity in the metallic ferromagnetic phase at low temperatures. Orbital degeneracy and strong correlations are described by an orbital t-J model which we treat in a slave-boson approach. Employing the memory-function formalism we calculate the optical conductivity, which is found to exhibit a broad incoherent component extending up to bare bandwidth accompanied by a strong suppression of the Drude weight. Further, we calculate the constant of T-linear specific heat. Our results are in overall agreement with experiment and suggest low-energy orbital fluctuations as the origin of the strongly correlated nature of the metallic phase of manganites.