Quenching of majority-channel quasiparticle excitations in cobalt

The low-energy electronic excitations in cobalt are studied by a theoretical method that includes many-body effects and a realistic description of the band structure. Angle-resolved photoemission spectra measured on a thick film of hexagonal close-packed Co on Cu(111) agree well with calculated spectral functions. Because of many-body effects no sharp quasiparticle peaks exist for binding energies larger than 2 eV and in this energy region the spectrum is essentially incoherent. The many-body corrections are much stronger in the majority-spin channel and drastically affect the spin polarization of the spectra.