  The electronic structure of CoO is studied by resonant inelastic soft X-ray
scattering spectroscopy using photon energies across the Co 2p absorption
edges. The different spectral contributions from the energy-loss structures are
identified as Raman scattering due to d-d and charge-transfer excitations. For
excitation energies close to the L3 resonance, the spectral features are
dominated by quartet-quartet and quartet-doublet transitions of the 3d7
configuration. At excitation energies corresponding to the satellites in the Co
2p X-ray absorption spectrum of CoO, the emission features are instead
dominated by charge-transfer transitions to the 3d8L-1 final state. The spectra
are interpreted and discussed with the support of simulations within the single
impurity Anderson model with full multiplet effects which are found to yield
consistent spectral functions to the experimental data.
