We have measured the thermal conductivity of the one-dimensional (1D) S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic spin system of Sr2Cu1-xPdxO3 single crystals including nonmagnetic impurities of Pd2+. It has been found that the mean free path of spinons along the 1D spin chain at low temperatures is very close to the average length of finite spin chains between spin defects estimated from the magnetic susceptibility measurements. This proves that the thermal conduction due to spinons at low temperatures in Sr2CuO3 is ballistic as theoretically expected [Zotos et al.: Phys. Rev. Lett. 55 (1997) 11029].
We report on the observation of magnon thermal conductivity $κ_m\sim$ 70 W/mK near 5 K in the helimagnetic insulator Cu$_2$OSeO$_3$, exceeding that measured in any other ferromagnet by almost two orders of magnitude. Ballistic, boundary-limited transport for both magnons and phonons is established below 1 K, and Poiseuille flow of magnons is proposed to explain a magnon mean-free path substantially exceeding the specimen width for the least defective specimens in the range 2 K $<T<$ 10 K. These observations establish Cu$_2$OSeO$_3$ as a model system for studying long-wavelength magnon dynamics…
We report zero and longitudinal magnetic field muon spin relaxation measurements of the spin S=1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain material SrCuO2. We find that in a weak applied magnetic field B the spin-lattice relaxation rate follows a power law B^n with n=-0.9(3). This result is temperature independent for 5K < T < 300 K. Within conformal field theory and using the Müller ansatz we conclude ballistic spin transport in SrCuO2.
Using reflective cross-polarized 2D THz time-domain spectroscopy in the range of 1-12 THz, we follow the trajectory of the out-of-equilibrium electron population in the low-bandgap semiconductor InSb. The 2D THz spectra show a set of distinct features at combinations of the plasma-edge and vibration frequencies. Using finite difference time domain simulations combined with a tight binding model of the band structure, we assign these features to electronic nonlinearities and show that the nonlinear response in the first picoseconds is dominated by coherent ballistic motion of the electrons. We …
We examine the ballistic conduction through Au-NiMnSb-Au heterostructures consisting of up to four units of NiMnSb in the scattering region. We investigate the dependence of the transmission function computed within the local spin density approximation (LSDA) of the density functional theory (DFT) on the number of half-metallic units in the scattering region. For a single NiMnSb unit the transmission function displays a spin polarization of around 50 % in a window of 1 eV centered around the Fermi level. By increasing the number of layers an almost complete spin polarization of the transmissio…
Low-temperature transport and magnetization measurements for the antiferromagnets SrMnO(3) and CaMnO(3) identify an impurity band of mobile states separated by energy E from electrons bound in Coulombic potentials. Very weak electric fields are sufficient to excite bound electrons to the impurity band, increasing the mobile carrier concentration by more than three orders of magnitude. The data argue against the formation of self-trapped magnetic polarons (MPs) predicted by theory, and rather imply that bound MPs become stable only for kT<<E.
We have calculated the energies of the phase-separated states for degenerate antiferromagnetic semiconductors including the possibility of the existence of conduction electrons in the antiferromagnetic part of the phase-separated states. It is demonstrated that, at T=0, the minimum energy corresponds to a droplet phase with absence of electrons in the antiferromagnetic part.
We investigate magnetic polarons in two-dimensional strongly correlated electron systems, where conduction electrons interact with antiferromagnetically interacting localized spins. Starting from a basic model, we derive a simplified model with the help of spin Green's function and a perturbation analysis. A strong coupling analysis is applied to the model, where the sum of the scattering wave vectors is approximated to be $(π,π)$ or zero, using the equation of motion for the conduction electron Green's function, and we discuss the pseudogap like behavior associated with the suppression of the…
We study the impact of a weak bond disorder on the spinon heat transport in the S=1/2 antiferromagnetic (AFM) Heisenberg chain material Sr_{1-x}Ca_xCuO_2. We observe a drastic suppression in the magnetic heat conductivity kappa_mag even at tiny disorder levels (i.e., Ca-doping levels), in stark contrast to previous findings for kappa_mag of S=1/2 two-dimensional square lattice and two-leg spin-ladder systems, where a similar bond disorder has no effect on kappa_mag. Hence, our results underpin the exceptional role of integrability of the S=1/2 AFM Heisenberg chain model and suggest that the bo…
Thermal conductivity κis measured at very low temperatures down to 0.28 K for pure and Mg-doped CuGeO_3 single crystals. The doped samples carry larger amount of heat than the pure sample at the lowest temperature. This is because antiferromagnetic magnons appear in the doped samples and are responsible for the additional heat conductivity, while κof the pure sample represents phonon conductivity at such low temperatures. The maximum energy of the magnon is estimated to be much lower than the spin-Peierls-gap energy. The result presents the first example that κat very low temperatures probes t…
The interplay between the Kondo effect and magnetic ordering driven by the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction is studied within the two-dimensional Hubbard-Kondo lattice model. In addition to the antiferromagnetic exchange interaction, $J_\perp$, between the localized and the conduction electrons, this model also contains the local repulsion, $U$, between the conduction electrons. We use variational cluster approximation to investigate the competition between the antiferromagnetic phase, the Kondo singlet phase, and a ferrimagnetic phase on square lattice. At half-filling, the Néel anti…
We discuss the paramagnetic and Neel-ordered phases of the Kondo lattice Hamiltonian on the 2D square lattice by means of bond Fermions. In the doped case we find two antiferromagnetic solutions, the first one with small ordered moment, heavy bands, and an antiferromagetically folded large Fermi surface - i.e. including the localized spins - the second one with large ordered moment, light bands and an antiferromagnetically folded conduction electron-only Fermi surface. The zero temperature phase diagram as a function of Kondo coupling and conduction electron density shows first and second orde…
A quantum phase transition is an unequivocal signature of strongly correlated many-body physics. Signatures of such phenomena are yet to be observed in ballistic transport through quantum wires. Recent developments in quantum wires have made it possible to enhance the interaction between the electrons. Here we show that hitherto unexplained anticrossing between conduction energy sub-bands, observed in such experiments, can be explained through a simple yet effective discretised model which undergoes a second order quantum phase transition within the Ising universality class. Accordingly, we ob…
We study the fate of a spin-1/2 impurity in the itinerant antiferromagnetic metallic phase via a renormalization group analysis and a variational calculation. The local moment - conduction electron interaction hamiltonian in an antiferromagnetic metal is spin non-conserving. We show that for a general location of the impurity, the Kondo singularities still occur, but the ground state has a partially unscreened moment. We calculate the magnitude of this residual moment and the variation of the spin polarization with energy for a substitutional impurity as a function of the staggered magnetizati…
The mutual influence of the conduction electron system provided by organic donor layers and magnetic system localized in insulating layers of the molecular charge transfer salt $κ$-(BETS)$_2$FeBr$_4$ has been studied. It is demonstrated that besides the high-field re-entrant superconducting state, the interaction between the two systems plays important role for the low-field superconductivity. The coupling of normal-state charge carriers to the magnetic system is reflected in magnetic quantum oscillations and can be evaluated based on the angle-dependent beating behaviour of the oscillations. …
The ground state of K$_{0.8+x}$Fe$_{1.6+y}$Se$_2$ and other iron-based selenide superconductors are doped antiferromagnetic semiconductors. There are well defined iron local moments whose energies are separated from those of conduction electrons by a large band gap in these materials. We propose that the low energy physics of this system is governed by a model Hamiltonian of interacting electrons with on-site ferromagnetic exchange interactions and inter-site superexchange interactions. We have derived the effective pairing potential of electrons under the linear spin-wave approximation and sh…
Kondo effect originates from antiferromagnetic (AFM) s-d coupling between magnetic impurity and the conduction electron, while it will be totally quenched in ferromagnetic (FM) regime due to malfunction of spin-flip. We investigate the possibility of switching on/off Kondo effect by transition of AFM/FM s-d coupling using 3d-metal phthalocyanine molecule (MPc) on Au(111) as a model system. A Hamiltonian model is constructed based on the feature of MPc molecule to show the condition for AFM/FM s-d coupling. The AFM s-d coupling could transform to FM s-d coupling if the spin state of the lowest …
Inelastic neutron scattering experiments show that spin dynamics in the charge ordered insulating ground state of the double-layer perovskite YBaFe2O5 is well described in terms of eg superexchange interactions. Above the Verwey transition at TV = 308 K, t2g double exchange-type conduction within antiferromagnetic FeO2--BaO--FeO2 double layers proceeds by an electron hopping process that requires a spin flip of the five-fold coordinated Fe ions, costing an energy 5<J>S^2 of approximately 0.1 eV. The hopping process disrupts near-neighbor spin correlations, leading to massive damping of zone-bo…
Results of the nuclear resonance experiments for the planar Cu sites in PrBa2Cu4O8 are presented. The NMR spectrum at 1.5 K in zero magnetic field revealed an internal field of 6.1 T, providing evidence for an antiferromagnetic order of the planar Cu spins. This confirms that the CuO2 planes are insulating, therefore, the metallic conduction in this material is entirely due to the one-dimensional zigzag Cu2O2 chains. The results of the spin-lattice relaxation rates measured by zero field NQR above 245 K in the paramagnetic state are explained by the theory for a Heisenberg model on a square la…
The diluted Kondo lattice model is investigated at strong antiferromagnetic local exchange couplings J, where almost local Kondo clouds drastically restrict the motion of conduction electrons, giving rise to the possibility of quantum localization of conduction electrons for certain geometries of impurity spins. This localization may lead to the formation of local magnetic moments in the conduction-electron system, and the inverse indirect magnetic exchange (IIME), provided by virtual excitations of the Kondo singlets, couples those local moments to the remaining electrons. Exemplarily, we stu…
Anisotropic resistivities of Bi_2Sr_2Ca_{1-x}Er_xCu_2O_8 single crystals were measured and analyzed from 4.2 to 500 K with special interest in the parent antiferromagnetic insulator of x=1.0. Although the resistivity is semiconducting along both the in- and out-of-plane directions, the temperature dependence is found to be significantly different. As a result, the resistivity ratio for x=1.0 takes a broad maximum near room temperature. The electric conduction in parent antiferromagnetic insulators is different from other semiconductors, and is as unconventional as that in high-temperature supe…
Ultrafast optical spectroscopy is used to study the antiferromagnetic f-electron system USb2. We observe the opening of two charge gaps at low temperatures (<45 K), arising from renormalization of the electronic structure. Analysis of our data indicates that one gap is due to hybridization between localized f-electron and conduction electron bands, while band renormalization involving magnons leads to the emergence of the second gap. These experiments thus enable us to shed light on the complex electronic structure emerging at the Fermi surface in f-electron systems.
We theoretically study the metal-insulator transition in a molecular conductor (MDT-TS)(AuI$_2$)$_{x}$ composed with an incommensurate ratio ($x = 0.441$), where the conduction band originated from the HOMO of donor MDT-TS molecules is incommensurately filled. We consider a two-dimensional Hubbard model taking account of anisotropic transfer integrals in the donor layer, under a periodic potential due to the anions (AuI$_2$)$^-$ which mismatches the donor lattice period, and investigate the ground state within mean-field approximation. An antiferromagnetic insulating state with induced charge …
Measurements of thermal conductivity (kappa) vs temperature are reported for a series of Ca_{1-x} La_x MnO_3(0 <= x <= 0.2) specimens. For the undoped (x=0), G-type antiferromagnetic compound a large enhancement of kappa below the Neel temperature (T_N ~ 125 K) indicates a strong coupling of heat-carrying phonons to the spin system. This enhancement exhibits a nonmonotonic behavior with increasing x and correlates remarkably well with the small ferromagnetic component of the magnetization reported previously [Neumeier and Cohn, Phys. Rev. B 61 14319 (2000).] Magnetoelastic polaron formation ap…
A microscopic theory of superconductivity is formulated within an effective $p$-$d$ Hubbard model for a CuO2 plane. By applying the Mori-type projection technique, the Dyson equation is derived for the Green functions in terms of Hubbard operators. The antiferromagnetic exchange caused by interband hopping results in pairing of all carries in the conduction subband and high Tc proportional to the Fermi energy. Kinematic interaction in intraband hopping is responsible for the conventional spin-fluctuation pairing. Numerical solution of the gap equation proves the d-wave gap symmetry and defines…
We study a one-dimensional electron liquid coupled by a weak spin-exchange interaction to an antiferromagnetic spin-S ladder with n legs. A perturbative renormalization group analysis in the semiclassical limit reveals the opening of a spin gap, driven by the local magnetic correlations on the ladder. The effect, which we argue is present for any gapful ladder or gapless ladder with $nS\gg 1$, is enhanced by the repulsive interaction among the conduction electrons but is insensitive to the sign of the spin exchange interaction with the ladder. Possible implications for the striped phases of th…
By using an extended mean-field theory, we study the phase diagram of the topological Kondo lattice model on the honeycomb lattice at half-filling in which the conduction electrons are described by the Haldane model. Besides the well-defined Kondo insulator and normal antiferromagnetic spin-density-wave (N-SDW) state, it is found that a nontrivial topological antiferromagnetic SDW state (T-SDW) with a quantized Hall conductance is possible if the quasiparticle gap is dominated by the next-nearest-neighbor hopping rather than the antiferromagnetic order. By analyzing the low-energy effective Ch…
Quantum mechanics and Coulomb interaction dictate the behavior of small circuits. The thermal implications cover fundamental topics from quantum control of heat to quantum thermodynamics, with prospects of novel thermal machines and an ineluctably growing influence on nanocircuit engineering. Experimentally, the rare observations thus far include the universal thermal conductance quantum and heat interferometry. However, evidences for many-body thermal effects paving the way to markedly different heat and electrical behaviors in quantum circuits remain wanting. Here we report on the observatio…
The possible heavy fermion superconductivity is carefully reexamined in the two-dimensional Kondo lattice model with an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg superexchange between local magnetic moments. In order to establish an effective mean field theory in the limit of the paramagnetic heavy Fermi liquid and near the half-filling case, we find that the spinon singlet pairing from the local antiferromagnetic short-range correlations can reduce the ground state energy substantially. In the presence of the Kondo screening effect, the Cooper pairs between the conduction electrons is induced. Depending o…
Experiments in spintronics and magnonics operate with macroscopically large number of localized spins within ferromagnetic (F) or antiferromagnetic (AF) materials, so that their nonequilibrium dynamics is standardly described by the Landau-Lifshitz (LL) equation treating localized spins as classical vectors of fixed length. However, spin is a genuine quantum degree of freedom, and even though quantum effects become progressively less important for spin value $S>1$, they exist for all $S < \infty$. While this has motivated exploration of limitations/breakdown of the LL equation, by using exampl…
