Spin dynamics in the high-field phases of volborthite
M. Yoshida, K. Nawa, H. Ishikawa, M. Takigawa, M. Jeong, S. Kramer, M. Horvatic, C. Berthier, K. Matsui, T. Goto, S. Kimura, T. Sasaki, J. Yamaura, H. Yoshida, Y. Okamoto, Z. Hiroi
We report single-crystal 51V NMR studies on volborthite Cu3V2O7(OH)2 2H2O, which is regarded as a quasi-two-dimensional frustrated magnet with competing ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions. In the 1/3 magnetization plateau above 28 T, the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate 1/T1 indicates an excitation gap with a large effective g factor in the range of 4.6-5.9, pointing to magnon bound states. Below 26 T where the gap has closed, the NMR spectra indicate small internal fields with a Gaussian-like distribution, whereas 1/T1 shows a power-law-like temperature dependence in the paramagnetic state, which resembles a slowing down of spin fluctuations associated with magnetic order. We discuss the possibility of an exotic spin state caused by the condensation of magnon bound states below the magnetization plateau.
A novel cuprate Volborthite, Cu3V2O7(OH)2-2H2O, containing an S-1/2 (Cu 2+ spin) kagome-like lattice is studied by magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, and 51 V NMR measurements. Signs for neither long-range order nor spin-gapped singlet ground states are detected down to 1.8 K, in spite of large antiferromagnetic couplings of ~100 K between Cu spins forming a two-dimensional kagome-like network. It is suggested that Volborthite represents a system close to a quantum critical point between classical long-range ordered and quantum disordered phases.
Two kagome compounds, volborthite Cu3V2O7(OH)2-2H2O and herbertsmithite ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2, are compared in order to derive information about the intrinsic properties of the spin-1/2 kagome antiferromagnet. Volborthite shows a broad maximum at T ~ J / 4 and the approach at T = 0 to a large finite value of the bulk magnetic susceptibility chi_bulk as well as the local susceptibility chi_local from NMR measurements. These must be intrinsic properties for the spin-1/2 kagome antiferromagnet, as similar behavior has also been reported in chi_local for herbertsmithite [Olariu A et al. 2008 Phys. Rev. Le…
We report results of 51V NMR in the field-induced phase of volborthite Cu3V2O7(OH)dot2H2O, a spin-1/2 antiferromagnet on a distorted kagome lattice. In magnetic fields above 4.5 T, two types of V sites with different spin-echo decay rates are observed. The hyperfine field at the fast decaying sites has a distribution, while it is more homogeneous at the slowly decaying sites. Our results indicate a heterogeneous state consisting of two spatially alternating Cu spin systems, one of which exhibits anomalous spin fluctuations contrasting with the other showing a conventional static order.
We report 51V-NMR study on a high-quality powder sample of volborthite Cu3V2O7(OH)2/2H2O, a spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a distorted kagome lattice formed by isosceles triangles. In the magnetic fields below 4.5 T, a sharp peak in the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate 1/T1 accompanied with line broadening revealed a magnetic transition near 1 K. The low temperature phase shows anomalies such as a Lorentzian line shape, a 1/T1 propto T behavior indicating dense low energy excitations, and a large spin-echo decay rate 1/T2 pointing to unusually slow fluctuations. Another magnetic ph…
The magnetization of two spin-1/2 kagome antiferromagnets, volborthite and vesignieite, has been measured in pulsed magnetic fields up to 68 T. A magnetization plateau is observed for each compound near the highest magnetic field. Magnetizations at saturation are approximately equal to 0.40Ms for both compounds, where Ms is the fully saturated magnetization, irrespective of a difference in the distortion of the kagome lattice between the two compounds. It should be noted that these values of magnetizations are significantly larger than Ms/3 predicted theoretically for the one-third magnetizati…
The Kagome-lattice-based material, Volborthite, $\mathrm{Cu_3 V_2 O_7 (OH)_2 \cdot 2 H_2 O}$, has been considered as a promising platform for discovery of unusual quantum ground states due to the frustrated nature of spin interactions. Here we explore possible quantum spin liquid and magnetically ordered phases in a two-dimensional non-symmorphic lattice described by $p2gg$ layer space group, which is consistent with the spatial anisotropy of the spin model derived from density functional theory (DFT) for Volborthite. Using the projective symmetry group (PSG) analysis and Schwinger boson mean …
Recently, thermal Hall effect has been observed in the paramagnetic state of Volborthite, which consists of distorted Kagome layers with $S=1/2$ local moments. Despite the appearance of a magnetic order below $1 \, \mathrm{K}$, the response to external magnetic field and unusual properties of the paramagnetic state above $1 \, \mathrm{K}$ suggest possible realization of exotic quantum phases. Motivated by these discoveries, we investigate possible spin liquid phases with fermionic spinon excitations in a non-symmorphic version of the Kagome lattice, which belongs to the two-dimensional crystal…
In this Letter, we identify a noncoplanar chiral spin texture on the distorted kagomé-lattice antiferromagnets induced by the presence of a magnetic field applied perpendicular to the distorted kagomé plane. The noncoplanar chiral spin texture has a nonzero scalar spin chirality similar to a chiral quantum spin liquid with broken time-reversal symmetry. In the noncoplanar regime we observe nontrivial topological magnetic excitations and thermal Hall response through the emergent field-induced scalar spin chirality in contrast to collinear ferromagnets in which the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) sp…
Volborthite compound is one of the very few realizations of S=1/2 quantum spins on a highly frustrated kagome-like lattice. Low-T SQUID measurements reveal a broad magnetic transition below 2K which is further confirmed by a peak in the 51V nuclear spin relaxation rate (1/T1) at 1.4K$\pm$0.2K. Through 51V NMR, the ground state (GS) appears to be a mixture of different spin configurations, among which 20% correspond to a well defined short range order, possibly of the $\sqrt{3} \times \sqrt{3}$ type. While the freezing involve all the Cu$^{2+}$ spins, only 40% of the copper moment is actually f…
Thermodynamic properties such as magnetic susceptibility and specific heat have been computed for the Heisenberg Antiferromagnet with spatially anisotropic exchange on the kagome lattice on clusters up to N=24 spins from the full spectra obtained by exact diagonalization. This approach is shown to provide a good represention of these thermodynamic properties above temperatures of about $J_{\rm av}/5$ where $J_{\rm av}$ is an average of the coupling constants. Comparison with experimental Volborthite data obtained by Hiroi {\it {et al}} [J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. {\bf 70},3377 (2001)] shows that Volbo…
Magnetic properties of the spin-1/2 kagome-like compound volborthite are studied using a high-quality polycrystalline sample. It is evidenced from magnetization and specific heat measurements that the spins on the kagome lattice still fluctuate at low temperature, down to T = 60 mK that corresponds to 1/1500 of the nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic interaction, exhibiting neither a conventional long-range order nor a spin gap. In contrast, 51V NMR experiments revealed a sharp peak at 1 K in relaxation rate, which indicates that a certain exotic order occurs. Surprisingly, we have observed thr…
We have synthesized high-quality single crystals of volborthite, a seemingly distorted kagome antiferromagnet, and carried out high-field magnetization measurements up to 74 T and 51V NMR measurements up to 30 T. An extremely wide 1/3 magnetization plateau appears above 28 T and continues over 74 T at 1.4 K, which has not been observed in previous study using polycrystalline samples. NMR spectra reveal an incommensurate order (most likely a spin-density wave order) below 22 T and a simple spin structure in the plateau phase. Moreover, a novel intermediate phase is found between 23 and 26 T, wh…
We present a microscopic magnetic model for the spin-liquid candidate volborthite Cu3V2O7(OH)2(H2O)2. The essentials of this DFT-based model are (i) the orbital ordering of Cu(1) 3d 3z2-r2 and Cu(2) 3d 3x2-y2, (ii) three relevant couplings J_ic, J_1 and J_2, (iii) the ferromagnetic nature of J_1 and (iv) frustration governed by the next-nearest-neighbor exchange interaction J_2. Our model implies magnetism of frustrated coupled chains in contrast to the previously proposed anisotropic kagome model. Exact diagonalization studies reveal agreement with experiments.
We report results of 51V NMR experiments on a high-quality powder sample of volborthite Cu3V2O7(OH)2/2H2O, a spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a distorted kagome lattice. Following the previous experiments in magnetic fields $B$ below 12 T, the NMR measurements have been extended to higher fields up to 31 T. In addition to the two already known ordered phases (phases I and II), we found a new high-field phase (phase III) above 25 T, at which a second magnetization step has been observed. The transition from the paramagnetic phase to the antiferromagnetic phase III occurs at 26 K, which is…
Microscopic spin interactions on a deformed Kagomé lattice of volborthite are investigated through magnetoelastic couplings. A negative longitudinal magnetostriction $ΔL<0$ in the $b$ axis is observed, which depends on the magnetization $M$ with a peculiar relation of $ΔL/L \propto M^{1.3}$. Based on the exchange striction model, it is argued that the negative magnetostriction originates from a pantograph-like lattice change of the Cu-O-Cu chain in the $b$ axis, and that the peculiar dependence arises from the local spin correlation. This idea is supported by DFT+$U$ calculations simulating th…
Thermodynamic investigations on volborthite (Cu3V2O7(OH)2 2H2O), which possesses a two-dimensional kagome structure of S-1/2 spins, are presented. The low-temperature heat capacities of volborthite and its Zn analogue compound were measured by the relaxation calorimetry technique between 0.8 and 45 K. The magnetic heat capacity of volborthite is characterized by two contributions of T-linear and T2 dependences, the former of which is large above 1 K, giving evidence of dense gapless excitations. We find a distinct kink in Cp T-1 at T* = 1 K, which demonstrates a thermodynamic phase transition …
We determined the spin exchanges between the Cu2+ ions in the kagome layers of volborthite, Cu3V2O7(OH)2x2H2O, by performing the energy-mapping analysis based on DFT+U calculations, to find that the kagomé layers of Cu2+ ions are hardly spin-frustrated, and the magnetic properties of volborthite below ~75 K should be described by very weakly interacting antiferromagnetic uniform chains made up of effective S=1/2 pseudospin units. This conclusion was verified by synthesizing single crystals of not only Cu3V2O7(OH)2x2H2O but also its deuterated analogue Cu3V2O7(OD)2x2D2O and then by investigatin…
In Volborthite, spin-1/2 moments form a distorted Kagomé lattice, of corner sharing isosceles triangles with exchange constants $J$ on two bonds and $J'$ on the third bond. We study the properties of such spin systems, and show that despite the distortion, the lattice retains a great deal of frustration. Although sub-extensive, the classical ground state degeneracy remains very large, growing exponentially with the system perimeter. We consider degeneracy lifting by thermal and quantum fluctuations. To linear (spin wave) order, the degeneracy is found to stay intact. Two complementary approach…
When quantum fluctuations destroy underlying long-range ordered states, novel quantum states emerge. Spin-liquid (SL) states of frustrated quantum antiferromagnets, in which highly-correlated spins keep to fluctuate down to very low temperatures, are prominent examples of such quantum states. SL states often exhibit exotic physical properties, but the precise nature of the elementary excitations behind such phenomena remains entirely elusive. Here we utilize thermal Hall measurements that can capture the unexplored property of the elementary excitations in SL states, and report on the observat…
We present spatial and dynamic information on the s=1/2 distorted kagome antiferromagnet volborthite, Cu3V2O7(OD)2.2D2O, obtained by polarized and inelastic neutron scattering. The instantaneous structure factor, S(Q), is dominated by nearest neighbor pair correlations, with short range order at wave vectors Q1=0.65(3) Å^-1 and Q2=1.15(5) Å^-1 emerging below 5 K. The excitation spectrum, S(Q,ω), reveals two steep branches dispersing from Q1 and Q2, and a flat mode at ω=5.0(2) meV. The results allow us to identify the cross-over at T*=1 K in 51V NMR and specific heat measurements as the build-u…
Motivated by recent experiments on volborthite single crystals showing a wide 1/3-magnetization plateau, we perform microscopic modeling by means of density functional theory (DFT) with the single-crystal structural data as a starting point. Using DFT+U, we find four leading magnetic exchanges: antiferromagnetic J and J2, as well as ferromagnetic J' and J1. Simulations of the derived spin Hamiltonian show good agreement with the experimental low-field magnetic susceptibility and high-field magnetization data. The 1/3-plateau phase pertains to polarized magnetic trimers formed by strong J bonds…
Motivated by a recent experiment on volborthite, a typical spin-$1/2$ antiferromagnet with a kagomé lattice structure, we study the magnetization process of a classical Heisenberg model on a spatially distorted kagomé lattice using the Monte Carlo (MC) method. We find a distortion-induced magnetization step at low temperatures and low magnetic fields. The magnitude of this step is given by $Δm_z=\left|1-α\right|/3α$ at zero temperature, where $α$ denotes the spatial anisotropy in exchange constants. The magnetization step signals a first-order transition at low temperatures, between two phases…
We study the properties of the Heisenberg antiferromagnet with spatially anisotropic nearest-neighbour exchange couplings on the kagome net, i.e. with coupling J in one lattice direction and couplings J' along the other two directions. For J/J' > 1, this model is believed to describe the magnetic properties of the mineral volborthite. In the classical limit, it exhibits two kinds of ground states: a ferrimagnetic state for J/J' < 1/2 and a large manifold of canted spin states for J/J' > 1/2. To include quantum effects self-consistently, we investigate the Sp(N) symmetric generalisation of the …
Volborthite offers an interesting example of a highly frustrated quantum magnet in which ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic interactions compete on anisotropic kagome lattices. A recent density functional theory calculation has provided a magnetic model based on coupled trimers, which is consistent with a broad 1/3-magnetization plateau observed experimentally. Here we study the effects of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions in volborthite. We derive an effective model in which pseudospin-1/2 moments emerging on trimers form a network of an anisotropic triangular lattice. Using the effect…
In the search for spin-1/2 kagome antiferromagnets, the mineral volborthite has recently been the subject of experimental studies [Hiroi et al.,2001]. It has been suggested that the magnetic properties of this material are described by a spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the kagome lattice with spatially anisotropic exchange couplings. We report on investigations of the Sp(N) symmetric generalisation of this model in the large N limit. We obtain a detailed description of the dependence of possible ground states on the anisotropy and on the spin length S. A fairly rich phase diagram with a ferrimagn…
Despite the conceptional importance of realizing spin liquids in solid states only few compounds are known. On the other side the effect of lattice distortions and anisotropies on the magnetic exchange topology and the fluctuation spectrum are an interesting problem. We compare the excitation spectra of the two s=1/2 kagome lattice compounds volborthite and vesignieite using Raman scattering. We demonstrate that even small modifications of the crystal structure may have a huge effect on the phonon spectrum and low temperature properties.
We use a semiclassical large-$S$ expansion to study a plateau at $1/3$ saturation in the magnetization curve of a frustrated ferrimagnet on a spatially anisotropic kagomé lattice. The spins have both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic nearest-neighbor Heisenberg couplings, and a frustrating next-nearest-neighbor coupling in one lattice direction. The magnetization plateau appears at the classical level for a certain range of couplings, and quantum fluctuations significantly broaden it at both ends. Near the region of the phase diagram where the classical plateau destabilizes, we find an exoti…
Frustrated spin systems on Kagome lattices have long been considered to be a promising candidate for realizing exotic spin liquid phases. Recently, there has been a lot of renewed interest in these systems with the discovery of materials such as Volborthite and Herbertsmithite that have Kagome like structures. In the presence of an external magnetic field, these frustrated systems can give rise to magnetization plateaus of which the plateau at $m=\frac{1}{3}$ is considered to be the most prominent. Here we study the problem of the antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 quantum XXZ Heisenberg model on a Ka…
We here report magnetostriction measurements under pulsed megagauss fields using a high-speed 100 MHz strain monitoring system devised using fiber Bragg grating (FBG) technique with optical filter method. The optical filter method is a detection scheme of the strain of FBG, where the changing Bragg wavelength of the FBG reflection is converted to the intensity of reflected light to enable the 100 MHz measurement. In order to show the usefulness and reliability of the method, we report the measurements for solid oxygen, spin-controlled crystal, and volborthite, a deformed Kagomé quantum spin la…
A spin-1/2 frustrated two-leg ladder with four-spin exchange interaction is studied by quantized Berry phases. We found that the Berry phase successfully characterizes the Haldane phase in addition to the rung-singlet phase, and the dominant vector-chirality phase. The Hamiltonian of the Haldane phase is topologically identical to the S=1 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain. Decoupled models connected to the dominant vector-chirality phase revealed that the local object identified by the non-trivial ($π$) Berry phase is the direct product of two diagonal singlets.
We study spin S=1 and S=3/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnets on a cubic lattice focusing on spin solid states. Using Schwinger boson formulation for spins, we start in a U(1) spin liquid phase proximate to Neel phase and explore possible confining paramagnetic phases as we transition away from the spin liquid by the process of monopole condensation. Electromagnetic duality is used to rewrite the theory in terms of monopoles. For spin 1 we find several candidate phases of which the most natural one is a phase with spins organized into parallel Haldane chains. For spin 3/2 we find that the most natur…
We present the phase diagram of the $S=1/2$ Heisenberg model on the two leg ladder with cyclic four spin exchange, determined by a combination of Exact Diagonalization and Density Matrix Renormalization Group techniques. We find six different phases and regimes: the rung singlet phase, a ferromagnetic phase, two symmetry broken phases with staggered dimers and staggered scalar chiralities, and a gapped region with dominant vector chirality or collinear spin correlations. We localize the phase transitions and investigate their nature.
Motivated by recent experiments on material Ba3NiSb2O9, we propose two novel spin liquid phases (A and B) for spin-1 systems on a triangular lattice. At the mean field level, both spin liquid phases have gapless fermionic spinon excitations with quadratic band touching, thus in both phases the spin susceptibility and C_v/T saturate to a constant at zero temperature, which are consistent with the experimental results on Ba3NiSb2O9. On the lattice scale, these spin liquid phases have Sp(4) ~ SO(5) gauge fluctuation; while in the long wavelength limit this Sp(4) gauge symmetry is broken down to U…
Spin supersolids and spin superfluids reveal complex canted spin structures with independent order of longitudinal and transverse spin components. This work addresses the question whether these exotic phases can exhibit spin-driven ferroelectricity. Here we report the results of dielectric and pyrocurrent measurements of MnCr2S4 as function of temperature and magnetic field up to 60 T. This sulfide chromium spinel exhibits a Yafet-Kittel type canted spin structure at low temperatures. As function of external magnetic field, the manganese spins undergo a sequence of ordering patterns of the tra…
We provide numerical evidence that a spin-flux phase exists as a ground state of the Kondo lattice model with classical local spins on a square lattice. This state manifests itself as a double-Q magnetic order in the classical spins with spin density at both $(0,π)$ and $(π,0)$ and further exhibits fermionic spin currents around an elementary plaquette of the square lattice. We examine the spin-wave spectrum of this phase. We further discus an extension to a face centered cubic (FCC) lattice where a spin-flux phase may also exist. On the FCC lattice the spin-flux phase manifests itself as a tr…
We study frustrated spin-1/2 dimer systems in two dimensions with a bilayer structure, where spins are ferromagnetically coupled in dimers. Our model includes frustrated two-spin exchange interactions as well as four-spin interaction. We pay particular attention to the spin nematic phase, which does not exhibit any magnetic (spin-dipole) order but has a spin-quadrupolar long-range order. Employing a perturbation calculation, a mean-field approximation, and a numerical many-variable variational Monte Carlo method, we determine ground-state phase diagrams on various two-dimensional lattices. It …
We study the quantum phase diagram of the spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg model on the kagomé lattice with first-, second-, and third-neighbor interactions $J_1$, $J_2$, and $J_3$ by means of density matrix renormalization group. For small $J_2$ and $J_3$, this model sustains a time-reversal invariant quantum spin liquid phase. With increasing $J_2$ and $J_3$, we find in addition a $q=(0,0)$ Néel phase, a chiral spin liquid phase, a valence-bond crystal phase, and a complex non-coplanar magnetically ordered state with spins forming the vertices of a cuboctahedron known as a cuboc1 phase. Both the chiral…
We investigate quantum phase transitions among the spin-gap phases and the magnetically ordered phases in a two-dimensional frustrated antiferromagnetic spin system, which interpolates several important models such as the orthogonal-dimer model as well as the model on the 1/5-depleted square lattice. By computing the ground state energy, the staggered susceptibility and the spin gap by means of the series expansion method, we determine the ground-state phase diagram and discuss the role of geometrical frustration. In particular, it is found that a RVB-type spin-gap phase proposed recently for …
We investigate the effect of the anisotropic spin-spin interaction on the ground state density distribution of the one dimensional spin-1 bosonic gases within a modified Gross-Pitaevskii theory both in the weakly interaction regime and in the Tonks-Girardeau (TG) regime. We find that for ferromagnetic spinor gas the phase separation occurs even for weak anisotropy of the spin-spin interaction, which becomes more and more obvious and the component of $m_F=0$ diminishes as the anisotropy increases. However, no phase separation is found for anti-ferromagnetic spinor gas in both regimes.
Spin liquid crystals are magnetic analogs of liquid crystals, possessing properties of both liquids and solids, a typical example of which are spin nematics. Spin nematics share many features with spin liquids, and the interplay between them is a promising, but little explored, route to uncovering new phases of matter. Here, we address this question in the context of a spin-$1$ magnet on the honeycomb lattice, by considering a model with both biquadratic interactions, favouring spin-nematic states, and Kitaev-like interactions, supporting spin liquids. Accompanying these, where dipole and quad…
The ground state of the multiple-spin exchange model with up to the six-spin exchange interactions on a triangular lattice in the magnetic field is investigated within the mean-field approximation. By comparing the phase diagrams of systems with and without the five- and six-spin interactions, we find that the five- and six-spin interactions expand the ferromagnetic phase. In contrast, the antiferromagnetic-like phases are contracted. A phase with a 1/2 plateau is also contracted by the five- and six-spin interactions. In addition to the results that have not yet been reported for systems with…
We suggest that under an increase of a magnetic field a spin-ladder with ferromagnetic legs does not pass without fail through an incommensurate phase but possibly in a straight way turns into a fully polarized ferromagnetic phase. The spin gap remains finite at the transition point. This scenario is demonstrated for the special spin-ladder model with exact singlet-rung ground state. We suppose that this kind of behavior realizes for the spin-ladder material (5IAP)_2CuBr_4*H_2O
We numerically study the Heisenberg models on triangular lattices by extending it from the simplest equilateral lattice with only the nearest-neighbor exchange interaction. We show that, by including an additional weak next-nearest-neighbor interaction, a quantum spin-liquid phase is stabilized against the antiferromagnetic order. The spin gap (triplet excitation gap) and spin correlation at long distances decay algebraically with increasing system size at the critical point between the antiferromagnetic phase and the spin-liquid phase. This algebraic behavior continues in the spin-liquid phas…
The quantum critical properties of the sub-Ohmic spin-1/2 spin-boson model and of the Bose-Fermi Kondo model have recently been discussed controversially. The role of the Berry phase in the breakdown of the quantum-to-classical mapping of quantum criticality in the spin-isotropic Bose-Fermi Kondo model has been discussed previously. In the present article, some of the subtleties underlying the functional integral representation of the spin-boson and related models with spin anisotropy are discussed. To this end, an introduction to spin coherent states and spin path integrals is presented with …
We investigate quantum phase transitions in the frustrated orthogonal-dimer chain with an arbitrary spin $S \geq 1/2$. When the ratio of the competing exchange couplings is varied, first-order phase transitions occur 2S times among distinct spin-gap phases. The introduction of single-ion anisotropy further enriches the phase diagram. The phase transitions described by the present model possess most of the essential properties inherent in frustrated quantum spin systems.
Using bosonization approach, we derive an effective low-energy theory for XXZ-symmetric spin-1/2 zigzag ladders and discuss its phase diagram by a variational approach. A spin nematic phase emerges in a wide part of the phase diagram, either critical or massive. Possible crossovers between the spontaneously dimerized and spin nematic phases are discussed, and the topological excitations in all phases identified.
Three decades ago Ioffe and Larkin pointed out a generic mechanism for the formation of a gapped spin liquid. In the case when a classical two-dimensional (2D) frustrated Heisenberg magnet undergoes a Lifshitz transition between a collinear Néel phase and a spin spiral phase, quantum effects usually lead to the development of a spin-liquid phase sandwiched between the Néel and spin spiral phases. In the present work, using field theory techniques, we study properties of this universal spin liquid phase. We examine the phase diagram near the Lifshitz point and calculate the positions of critica…
We study various Mott insulating phases of interacting spin-3/2 fermionic ultracold atoms in two-dimensional square optical lattices at half filling. Using a generalized one-band Hubbard model with hidden SO(5) symmetry, we identify two distinct symmetry breaking phases: the degenerate antiferromagnetic spin-dipole/spin-octupole ordering and spin-quadrupole ordering, depending on the sign of the spin-dependent interaction. These two competing orders exhibit very different symmetry properties, low energy excitations and topological characterizations. Near the SU(4) symmetric point, a quantum cr…
We present a theory of the anisotropy tuned quantum phase transition between spin nematic and spin-Peierls phases in S=1 systems with significant bi-quadratic exchange interactions. Based on quantum Monte Carlo studies on finite size systems, [K. Harada et al., J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 76, 013703 (2007)] it has been proposed that this phase transition is second order with new deconfined fractional excitations that are absent in either of the two phases [T. Grover and T. Senthil, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 247202 (2007)]. The possibility of a weak first order transition, however, cannot be ruled out. To el…
Quantum phase transitions between the magnetically ordered and disordered states are studied for the two-dimensional antiferromagnetic quantum spin systems with ladder, plaquette, and mixed-spin structures. Starting with properly chosen singlet-cluster configurations, we perform the series expansion for the staggered magnetic susceptibility. The phase boundary is determined by applying the Dlog and biased Padé approximants to the staggered susceptibility thus obtained. The resulting phase diagram allows us to discuss the quantum phase transitions quantitatively, which agrees fairly well with t…
We report muon spin relaxation measurements on the magnetic structures of RBaCo_2O_5.5 with R=Y, Tb, Dy, and Ho. Three different phases, one ferrimagnetic and two antiferromagnetic, are identified below 300 K. They consist of different ordered spin state arrangements of high-, intermediate-, and low-spin Co^3+ of CoO_6 octahedra. Phase separation into well separated regions with different spin state order is observed in the antiferromagnetic phases. The unusual strongly anisotropic magnetoresistance and its onset at the FM-AFM phase boundary is explained.
Motivated by recent experiments on Ni(C_{2}H_{8}N_{2})_{2}Ni(CN)_{4} (commonly known as NENC), we study the electron spin resonance in the critical high-field phase of the antiferromagnetic S=1 chain with strong planar anisotropy and show that the ESR spectra exhibit several peculiarities in the critical phase. Possible relevance of those results for other gapped spin systems is discussed.
We study the effects of bond randomness in the spin-$1/2$ $J_1-J_2$ triangular Heisenberg model using exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group. With increasing bond randomness, we identify a randomness induced spin-liquid-like phase without any magnetic order, dimer order, spin glass order, or valence-bond glass order. The finite-size scaling of gaps suggests the gapless nature of both spin triplet and singlet excitations, which is further supported by the broad continuum of dynamical spin structure factor. By studying the bipartite entanglement spectrum of the system on …
The static structure factor S(q) of frustrated spin-1/2 chains with isotropic exchange and a singlet ground state (GS) diverges at wave vector q_m when the GS has quasi-long-range order (QLRO) with periodicity 2π/q_m but S(q_m) is finite in bond-order-wave (BOW) phases with finite-range spin correlations. Exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculations of S(q) indicate a decoupled phase with QLRO and q_m = π/2 in chains with large antiferromagnetic exchange between second neighbors. S(q_m) identifies quantum phase transitions based on GS spin correlations.
In the present work we aim to characterize the lattice configurations and the magnetic behavior in the incommensurate phase of spin-Peierls systems. This phase emerges when the magnetic exchange interaction is coupled to the distortions of an underlying triangular lattice and has its experimental realization in the quasi-one dimensional compound family TiOX (X = Cl, Br). With a simple model of spin-1/2 chains inserted in a planar triangular geometry which couples them elastically, we are able to obtain the uniform-incommensurate and incommensurate-dimerized phase transitions seen in these comp…
Motivated by a recent experiment on Cs2CuCl4, we study the spin dynamics of the spin-liquid phase of the spin-1/2 frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the anisotropic triangular lattice. There have been two different proposals for the spin-liquid phase of Cs2CuCl4. These spin-liquid states support different statistics of spinons; the bosonic Sp(N) large-N mean field theory predicts bosonic spinons while the SU(2) slave-boson mean field theory leads to fermionic spinons. We compute the dynamical spin structure factor for both types of spin-liquid state at zero and finite temperatures. While…
Spin crossover molecules have two accessible states: high spin (HS) and low spin (LS). We show that, on the pyrochlore lattice, elastic interactions between SCO molecules can give rise to three spin-state ice phases. Each is a ``Coulomb phase'' where a local ice-rule can be mapped to a divergence free gauge field and the low energy excitations carry a spin fractionalized midway between the LS and HS states. The unique nature of spin crossover materials allows temperature to change the ice rules allowing straightforward access to Coulomb phases not yet observed in water or spin ices.
We show that the spin liquid phase of the half-filled Hubbard model on the triangular lattice can be described by a pure spin model. This is based on a high-order strong coupling expansion (up to order 12) using perturbative continuous unitary transformations. The resulting spin model is consistent with a transition from three-sublattice long-range magnetic order to an insulating spin liquid phase, and with a jump of the double occupancy at the transition. Exact diagonalizations of both models show that the effective spin model is quantitatively accurate well into the spin liquid phase, and a …
Spin-orbital entanglement in quantum spin-orbital systems is quantified by a reduced von Neumann entropy, and is calculated for the ground state of a coupled spin-orbital chain with $SU(2)\times SU(2)$ symmetry. By analyzing the discontinuity and local extreme of the reduced entropy as functions of the model parameters, we deduce a rich phase diagram to describe the quantum phase transitions in the model. Our approach provides an efficient and powerful method to identify phase boundaries in a system with complex correlation between multiply degrees of freedom.
It has recently been proposed that Na4Ir3O8 is a weak Mott insulator at ambient pressure, supporting a three-dimensional spin liquid phase with a spinon Fermi surface. This proposal is consistent with recent experimental findings that the material becomes a metal upon increasing pressure or doping. In this work, we investigate the effect of the spin-orbit coupling arising from 5d Ir moments both in the metallic and spin liquid phases of Na4Ir3O8. The effective Hubbard model in terms of pseudospin j=1/2 Ir states is derived and its consequences to both metallic and spin liquid phases are studie…
