  The theoretical description of photoemission spectra of transition metals was
greatly improved recently by accounting for the correlations between the d
electrons within the local spin density approximation (LSDA) plus dynamical
mean field theory (DMFT). We assess the improvement of the LSDA+DMFT over the
plain LSDA in x-ray absorption spectroscopy, which --- unlike the photoemission
spectroscopy --- is probing unocccupied electronic states. By investigating the
L2,3-edge x-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) and x-ray magnetic
circular dichroism (XMCD) of Fe, Co, and Ni, we find that the LSDA+DMFT
improves the LSDA results, in particular concerning the asymmetry of the L3
white line. Differences with respect to the experiment, nevertheless, remain
--- particularly concerning the ratio of the intensities of the L3 and L2
peaks. The changes in the XMCD peak intensities invoked by the use of the
LSDA+DMFT are a consequence of the improved description of the orbital
polarization and are consistent with the XMCD sum rules. Accounting for the
core hole within the final state approximation does not generally improve the
results. This indicates that to get more accurate L2,3-edge XANES and XMCD
spectra, one has to treat the core hole beyond the final state approximation.

Strongly Correlated Electrons;Materials Science