Origin of the high-energy kink in the photoemission spectrum of the high-temperature superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8

The high-energy kink or the waterfall effect seen in the photoemission spectra of cuprates is suggestive of the coupling of quasiparticles to a high-energy bosonic mode with implications for the mechanism of superconductivity. Recent experiments, however, indicate that this effect may be an artifact produced entirely by matrix element effects, i.e., by the way the photoemitted electron couples to incident photons in the emission process. In order to address this issue directly, we have carried out realistic computations of the photointensity in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 where the effects of the matrix element are included together with those of the corrections to the self-energy resulting from electronic excitations. Our results demonstrate that while the photoemission matrix element plays an important role in shaping the spectra, the waterfall effect is a clear signature of the presence of strong coupling of quasiparticles to electronic excitations.