Spin excitations in the nematic phase and the metallic stripe spin-density wave phase of iron pnictides

We present a general study of the magnetic excitations within a weak-coupling five-orbital model relevant to itinerant iron pnictides. As a function of enhanced electronic correlations, the spin excitations in the symmetry-broken spin-density wave phase evolve from broad low-energy modes in the limit of weak interactions to sharply dispersing spin waves prevailing to higher energies at larger interaction strengths. We show how the resulting spin response at high energies depends qualitatively on the magnitude of the interactions. We also calculate the magnetic excitations in the nematic phase by including an orbital splitting, and find a pronounced C2-symmetric excitation spectrum right above the transition to long-range magnetic order. Finally, we discuss the C2 versus C4 symmetry of the spin excitations as a function of energy for both the nematic and the spin-density wave phase.