American Physical Society, Physical Review X, 1(4), 2014
DOI: 10.1103/physrevx.4.011040
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Magnetite, Fe_{3}O_{4}, is the first magnetic material discovered and utilized by mankind in Ancient Greece, yet it still attracts attention due to its puzzling properties. This is largely due to the quest for a full and coherent understanding of the Verwey transition that occurs at T_{V} = 124 K and is associated with a drop of electric conductivity and a complex structural phase transition. A recent detailed analysis of the structure, based on single crystal diffraction, suggests that the electron localization pattern contains linear three-Fe-site units, the so-called trimerons. Here we show that whatever the electron localization pattern is, it partially survives up to room temperature as short-range correlations in the high-temperature cubic phase, easily discernible by diffuse scattering. Additionally, {\it ab initio} electronic structure calculations reveal that characteristic features in these diffuse scattering patterns can be correlated with the Fermi surface topology.