Which orbital and charge ordering in transition metal oxides can resonant X-ray diffraction detect?
Résumé
The present article is a brief critical review about the possibility of detecting charge and/or orbital order in transition-metal oxides by means of resonant x-ray diffraction. Many recent models of transition-metal oxides are based on charge and/or orbitally ordered ground-states and it has been claimed in the past that resonant x-ray diffraction is able to confirm or reject them. However, in spite of the many merits of this technique, such claims are ambiguous, because the interpretative frameworks used to analyze such results in transition-metal oxides, where structural distortions are always associated to the claimed charged/orbitally ordered transition, strongly influence (not to say suggest) the answer. In order to clarify this point, I discuss the two different definitions of orbital and charge orderings which are often used in the literature without a clear distinction. My conclusion is that the answer to the question of the title depends on which definition is adopted.