Eur. Phys. J. B 77, 41-45 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2010-00251-x

Scissors Modes in crystals with cubic symmetry

¹ Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Aragón, CSIC-Universidad de Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
² INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, C.P. 13, 00044 Frascati, Italy
³ Centro Fermi, Compendio Viminale, 00184 Roma, Italy

Corresponding author: ^a fabrizio.palumbo@lnf.infn.it

Received: 22 December 2009
Revised: 28 June 2010
Published online: 13 August 2010

Abstract

We recently suggested that the Scissors Mode (a collective excitation in which one system rotates with respect another one conserving its shape) can occur in crystals with axially symmetric atoms as a precession of these atoms around the anisotropy axis of their cells, giving rise to a form of dichroism. In the present paper we investigate how the Scissors Mode can be realized in crystals with cubic symmetry and evaluate its photo-absorption cross-section. This turns out to be of the same order of magnitude as that for crystals with axially symmetric atoms, but does not exhibit any correlation between the direction of the photon and the axes of the cell.