  The nature of the electronic groundstate of Ba2IrO4 has been addressed using
soft X-ray absorption and inelastic scattering techniques in the vicinity of
the oxygen K edge. From the polarization and angular dependence of XAS we
deduce an approximately equal superposition of xy, yz and zx Ir4+ 5d orbitals.
By combining the measured orbital occupancies, with the value of the spin-orbit
coupling provided by RIXS, we estimate the crystal field splitting associated
with the tetragonal distortion of the IrO6 octahedra to be small, \Delta=50(50)
meV. We thus conclude definitively that Ba2IrO4 is a close realization of a
spin-orbit Mott insulator with a jeff = 1/2 groundstate, thereby overcoming
ambiguities in this assignment associated with the interpretation of X-ray
resonant scattering experiments.
