Resonant inelastic x-ray scattering study of charge excitations in La(2)CuO(4)

We report a resonant inelastic x-ray scattering study of the dispersion relations of charge-transfer excitations in insulating La(2)CuO(4).. These data reveal two peaks, both of which show two-dimensional characteristics. The lowest energy excitation has a gap energy of approximately 2.2 eV at the zone enter, and a dispersion of approximately 1 eV. The spectral weight of this mode becomes dramatically smaller around (pi, pi). The second peak shows a smaller dispersion ( approximately 0.5 eV) with a zone-center energy of approximately 3.9 eV. We argue that these are both highly dispersive exciton modes damped by the presence of the electron-hole continuum.