The plateau at 1/3 of the saturation magnetization, $M_s$, in the metamagnet CeSb is accompanied by a state of ferromagnetic layers of spins in an up-up-down sequence. We measured $M$ and the specific heat, $C$, in the plateau, spin wave analyses of which reveal two distinct branches of excitations. Those with $ΔS_z = 1$ as measured by $M$, coexist with a much larger population of $ΔS_z = 0$ excitations measured by $C$ but invisible to $M$. The large density of $ΔS_z = 0$ excitations, their energy gap, and their seeming lack of interaction with $ΔS_z = 1$ excitations suggest an analogy with astrophysical dark matter. Additionally, in the middle of the plateau three sharp jumps in $M(H)$ are seen, the size of which, $0.15 $%$M_s$, is consistent with fractional quantization of magnetization-per-site in the down-spin layers.
Cerium diantimonide (CeSb$_2$) is one of a family of rare earth based magnetic materials that exhibit metamagnetism, enabling control of the magnetic ground state through an applied magnetic field. At low temperatures, CeSb$_2$ hosts a rich phase diagram with multiple magnetically ordered phases for many of which the order parameter is only poorly understood. In this paper, we report a study of its metamagnetic properties by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) and magnetization measurements. We use STM measurements to characterize the sample magnetostriction with sub-picometer resolution from …
Temperature and field-dependent magnetization $M(H,T)$ measurements and neutron scattering study of a single crystal CeSb$_2$ are presented. Several anomalies in the magnetization curves have been confirmed at low magnetic field, i.e., 15.6 K, 12 K, and 9.8 K. These three transitions are all metamagnetic transitions (MMT), which shift to lower temperatures as the magnetic field increases. The anomaly at 15.6 K has been suggested as paramagnetic (PM) to ferromagnetic (FM) phase transition. The anomaly located at around 12 K is antiferromagnetic-like transition, and this turning point will clear…
The charge and spin of the electrons in solids have been extensively exploited in electronic devices and in the development of spintronics. Another attribute of electrons - their orbital nature - is attracting growing interest for understanding exotic phenomena and in creating the next-generation of quantum devices such as orbital qubits. Here, we report on orbital-flop induced magnetoresistance anisotropy in CeSb. In the low temperature high magnetic-field driven ferromagnetic state, a series of additional minima appear in the angle-dependent magnetoresistance. These minima arise from the ani…
Synergic effect of electronic correlation and spin-orbit coupling is an emerging topic in topological materials. Central to this rapidly developing area are the prototypes of strongly correlated heavy-fermion systems. Recently, some Ce-based compounds are proposed to host intriguing topological nature, among which the electronic properties of CeSb are still under debate. In this paper, we report a comprehensive study combining magnetic and electronic transport measurements, and electronic band structure calculations of this compound to identify its topological nature. Quantum oscillations are …
The magnetization curve of the two-dimensional spin-1/2 $J_1$-$J_2$ Heisenberg model is investigated by using the Chern-Simons theory under a uniform mean-field approximation. We find that the magnetization curve is monotonically increasing for $J_2/J_1 < 0.267949$, where the system under zero external field is in the antiferromagnetic Néel phase. For larger ratios of $J_2/J_1$, various plateaus will appear in the magnetization curve. In particular, in the disordered phase, our result supports the existence of the $M/M_{\rm sat}=1/2$ plateau and predicts a new plateau at $M/M_{\rm sat}=1/3$. B…
We can directly investigate the ground state in magnetization-plateau fields (plateau ground state) using neutron diffraction measurements. We performed neutron diffraction measurements on the spin-5/2 trimer substance SrMn$_3$P$_4$O$_{14}$ in magnetization-plateau fields. The integrated intensities of magnetic reflections calculated using an expectation value of each spin in a plateau ground state of an isolated-trimer model agree well with those obtained experimentally in the magnetization-plateau fields. We succeeded in direct observation of a plateau ground state in SrMn$_3$P$_4$O$_{14}$.
We discuss magnetization curves of a toy-model trigonal and tetrahedral clusters. Nonlinearity of magnetization with local minimum of differential susceptibility resembling known magnetization plateaus of triangular-lattice and pyrochlore lattice antiferromagnets is observed at intermediate temperature range $ J\lesssim T\lesssimΘ$ (here $J$ is the exchange coupling constant and $Θ$ is a Curie-Weiss temperature). This behavior is due to increased statistical weight of the states with intermediate total spin of the cluster, which is related to the `order-by-disorder' mechanism of plateau stabil…
We study the behavior of magnetization curve as a function of magnetic field in the immediate vicinity of the magnetization plateaus of 1D electron systems within the bosonization formalism. First we discuss the plateau that is formed at the saturation magnetization of 1D electron system. Interactions between electrons we treat in the lowest order of perturbation. We show that for isolated systems, where total number of electrons is not allowed to vary, magnetic susceptibility stays always finite away of half filling. Similar statement holds for many other magnetization plateaus supporting non…
The phenomenon of magnetization plateaus in antiferromagnets under magnetic field has always been an important topic in magnetism. We propose to probe the elusive physics of plateaus in 2-d by considering hole-doped antiferromagnet and studying the signatures of magnetization plateaus in terms of the properties of holes, coupled to an effective gauge field generated by the spin sector. The latter mediates interaction between the holes, found to be algebraically decaying long-ranged with both Coulombic and dipolar forms outside plateau and short-ranged (local) inside plateau. The resulting hole…
Magnetization plateaus in quantum spin systems emerges in two-dimensional frustrated systems such as kagome lattice. The spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on square-kagome lattice is also appropriate for the study of magnetization plateau. Motivated by recent experimental finding of such a square-kagome lattice with nonequivalent three bonds, we investigate the phase diagrams and magnetization plateaus of the lattice by the exact diagonalization method. In addition to previously reported the 1/3 and 2/3 plateaus in the model with two equivalent bonds, we find a new 2/3 plateau whose …
This is a short review of recent theoretical work on magnetization plateaux in one-dimensional strongly correlated electron systems, i.e. in spin chains, spin ladders or more generally, Hubbard chains and ladders.
The low temperature magnetization process of antiferromagnetic spin-S chains doped with mobile spin-(S-1/2) carriers is studied in an exactly solvable model. For sufficiently high magnetic fields the system is in a metallic phase with a finite gap for magnetic excitations. In this phase which exists for a large range of carrier concentrations x the zero temperature magnetization is determined by x alone. This leads to plateaus in the magnetization curve at a tunable fraction of the saturation magnetization. The critical behaviour at the edges of these plateaus is studied in detail.
Magnetization plateaux, visible as anomalies in magnetic susceptibility at low temperatures, are one of the hallmarks of frustrated magnetism. An extremely robust half-magnetization plateau is observed in the spinel oxides CdCr2O4 and HgCr2O4, where it is accompanied by a substantial lattice distortion. We give an overview of the present state experiment for CdCr2O4 and HgCr2O4, and show how such a half-magnetization plateau arises quite naturally in a simple model of these systems, once coupling to the lattice is taken into account.
We study the magnetization for the classical antiferromagnetic Ising model on the Shastry-Sutherland lattice using the tensor renormalization group approach. With this method, one can probe large spin systems with little finite-size effect. For a range of temperature and coupling constant, a single magnetization plateau at one third of the saturation value is found. We investigate the dependence of the plateau width on temperature and on the strength of magnetic frustration. Furthermore, the spin configuration of the plateau state at zero temperature is determined.
The transition from the 1/3 magnetization plateau towards the saturation magnetization in azurite has been studied by low-temperature, high-magnetic-field, high-frequency proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The observed symmetrical splitting of the NMR spectra is incompatible with the longitudinal incommensurate order appearing when the longitudinal correlation function becomes dominant over the transverse one, which is the expected framework for the existence of the 2/3 magnetization plateau. The spectra are rather interpreted in terms of a more standard transverse antiferromagnetic (can…
We study an anisotropic Heisenberg antiferromagnet with ferromagnetic transverse spin exchange using exact quantum Monte Carlo methods. Such a model is relevant to a class of rare earth tetraboride materials that display a range of magnetization plateaus under applied magnetic field. The layered arrangement of magnetic ions in these materials is topologically equivalent to the Shastry-Sutherland lattice. In this frustrated geometry, we study the interplay of next-nearest neighbor interactions in stabilizing a plateau at half the saturation magnetization (or 1/2 plateau). We also show hysteresi…
We show that the critical fields of the magnetization plateaus of the Shastry-Sutherland model decrease significantly upon increasing the ratio of inter- to intra-dimer coupling, and accordingly that the magnetization plateaus of SrCu_2(BO_3)_2 shift to lower field under pressure, making the first two plateaus at 1/8 and 2/15 potentially accessible to neutron scattering experiments. These conclusions are based on the derivation of an effective classical model of interacting pinwheel-shaped spin-2 bound states using a combination of perturbative and graph-based continuous unitary transformation…
We study the magnetization process of the $S=1$ Heisenberg model on a two-leg ladder with farther neighbor spin-exchange interaction. We consider the interaction that couples up to the next-nearest neighbor rungs and find an exactly solvable regime where the ground states become product states. The next-nearest neighbor interaction tends to stabilize magnetization plateaus at multiples of 1/6. In most of the exactly solvable regime, a single magnetization curve shows two series of plateaus with different periodicities.
The frustrated quantum spin system on the distorted diamond chain lattice is investigated using the numerical diagonalization of finite-size clusters and the level spectroscopy analysis. In the previous work this system was revealed to exhibit the 1/3 magnetization plateau due to two different mechanisms depending on the coupling parameters, and the phase diagram at the 1/3 magnetization was obtained. In the present work it is found that the 1/3 magnetization plateau vanishes for sufficiently large $XY$-like coupling anisotropy. The phase diagram based on the level spectroscopy analysis is als…
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 $S=1/2$ distorted diamond spin chain with the anisotropic ferromagnetic interaction is investigated using the numerical diagonalization and the level spectroscopy analysis. It is known that the system exhibits a plateau of the magnetization curve at the 1/3 of the saturation. The present study indicates that as the anisotropy is varied the quantum phase transition occurs between two different mechanisms of the 1/3 magnetization plateau. The phase diagram with respect to the anisotropy and the ferromagnetic coupling is also presented.
We clarify the existence of several magnetization plateaux for the kagome $S=1/2$ antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model in a magnetic field. Using approximate or exact localized magnon eigenstates, we are able to describe in a similar manner the plateau states that occur for magnetization per site $m=1/3$, $5/9$, and $7/9$ of the saturation value. These results are confirmed using large-scale Exact Diagonalization on lattices up to 63 sites.
The crystal structure of Cs$_2$CuBr$_4$ is the same as that of Cs$_2$CuCl$_4$, which has been characterized as a spin-1/2 quasi-two-dimensional frustrated system. The magnetic properties of Cs$_2$CuBr$_4$ were investigated by magnetization and specific heat measurements. The phase transition at zero magnetic field was detected at $T_{\rm N}=1.4$ K. It was observed that the magnetization curve has a plateau at about one-third of the saturation magnetization for magnetic field $H$ parallel to the $b$- and $c$-axes, while no plateau was observed for $H\parallel a$. The field-induced phase transit…
We investigated the classical Shastry-Sutherland lattice under an external magnetic field in order to understand the recently discovered magnetization plateaux in the rare-earth tetraborides compounds RB$_4$. A detailed study of the role of thermal fluctuations was carried out by mean of classical spin waves theory and Monte-Carlo simulations. Magnetization quasi-plateaux were observed at 1/3 of the saturation magnetization at non zero temperature. We showed that the existence of these quasi-plateaux is due to an entropic selection of a particular collinear state. We also obtained a phase diag…
Magnetization plateaus are some of the most striking manifestations of frustration in low-dimensional spin systems. We present numerical studies of magnetization plateaus in the fascinating spin-1/2 skewed ladder system obtained by alternately fusing five- and seven-membered rings. This system exhibits three significant plateaus at $m = 1/4$, $1/2$ and $3/4$, consistent with the Oshikawa-Yamanaka-Affleck condition. Our numerical as well as perturbative analysis shows that the ground state can be approximated by three weakly coupled singlet dimers and two free spins, in the absence of a magneti…
We report the results of magnetization and specific heat measurements on Ba$_3$NiSb$_2$O$_9$, which is a quasi-two-dimensional spin-1 triangular-lattice antiferromagnet. We observed a nonclassical magnetization plateau at one-third of the saturation magnetization that is driven by spin frustration and quantum fluctuation. Exact diagonalization for a 21-site rhombic cluster was performed to analyze the magnetization process. Experimental and calculated results agree well.
We propose a modified spin-wave theory to study the 1/3 magnetization plateau of the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on the kagome lattice. By the self-consistent inclusion of quantum corrections, the 1/3 plateau is stabilized over a broad range of magnetic fields for all spin quantum numbers, S. The values of the critical magnetic fields and the widths of the magnetization plateaus are fully consistent with recent numerical results from exact diagonalization and infinite projected entangled paired states.
Magnetization plateaux emerging in quantum spin systems due to spontaneously breaking of translational symmetry have been reported both theoretically and experimentally. The broken symmetry can induce reconstruction of elementary excitations such as Goldstone and Higgs modes, whereas its microscopic mechanism and reconstructed quasi-particle in magnetization-plateau phases have remained unclear so far. Here we theoretically study magnetic excitations in the magnetization-plateau phases of a frustrated spin ladder by using dynamical density-matrix renormalization-group method. Additionally, ana…
Fluctuation dynamics in magnetization plateaux are a relatively poorly explored area in frustrated magnetism. Here we use muon spin relaxation to determine the fluctuation timescale and associated field distribution width in the partial magnetization plateau of Ca3Co2O6. The muon spin relaxation rate has a simple and characteristic field dependence which we model and by fitting to the data at 15 K extract a fluctuation timescale tau = 880(30) ps and a field distribution width Delta = 40.6(3) mT. Comparison with previous results on Ca3Co2O6 suggests that this fluctuation timescale can be associ…
The antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on a pyrochlore lattice under external magnetic field is studied by classical Monte Carlo simulation. The model includes bilinear and biquadratic interactions; the latter effectively describes the coupling to lattice distortions. The magnetization process shows a half-magnetization plateau at low temperatures, accompanied with strong suppression of the magnetic susceptibility. Temperature dependence of the plateau behavior is clarified. Finite-temperature phase diagram under the magnetic field is determined. The results are compared with recent experiment…
The magnetization process of the S=1/2 antiferromagnetic spin ladder at T=0 is studied by the exact diagonalization of finite clusters and size scaling analyses. It is found that a magnetization plateau appears at half the saturation value (m=1/2) in the presence of a sufficiently large next-nearest-neighbor exchange interaction to yield the frustration, when the rung coupling is larger than the leg one. The phase diagram at m=1/2 is given by the analysis based on the conformal invariance. The magnetization curves are also presented in several cases.
Magnetization plateaus in the Shastry-Sutherland model for ${\rm SrCu_2(BO_3)_2}$ are studied by the perturbation expansion method. The fourth-order effective Hamiltonian which describes the dynamics of triplet dimers (TD's) with $S^{\rm tot}_z=1$ in the singlet sea is derived and then partially diagonalized for the space that consists of the TD configurations with the lowest second-order energy. The fourth-order terms are treated within a low-density approximation. Our procedure makes clear how TD interactions are responsible for the formation of magnetization plateaus. Particularly, the 1/4-…
We discuss zero-temperature quantum spin chains in a uniform magnetic field, with axial symmetry. For integer or half-integer spin, $S$, the magnetization curve can have plateaus and we argue that the magnetization per site $m$ is topologically quantized as $q (S - m)= integer$ at the plateaus, where $q$ is the period of the groundstate. We also discuss conditions for the presence of the plateau at those quantized values. For $S=3/2$ and $m=1/2$, we study several models and find two distinct types of massive phases at the plateau. One of them is argued to be a ``Haldane gap phase'' for half-in…
The quantum spin ice model applied to Tb2Ti2O7 predicts that magnetic fields applied along the [111] axis will induce a partial magnetization plateau [H. R. Molavian and M. J. P. Gingras, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 21, 172201 (2009)]. We test this hypothesis using ac magnetic susceptibility and muon-spin relaxation measurements, finding features at 15 and 65 mT agreeing with the predicted boundaries of the magnetization plateau. This suggests that Tb2Ti2O7 is well described by a quantum spin ice model with an effective exchange constant of Jeff = 0.17(1) K.
Using the density matrix renormalization group technique we investigate the low-energy properties and the magnetization plateau behavior in a 2-leg mixed spin ladder consisting of a spin-1/2 chain coupled with a spin-1 chain. The calculated results show that the system is in the same universality class as the spin-3/2 chain when the interchain coupling is strongly ferromagnetic, but the similarity between the two systems is less clear under other coupling conditions. We have identified two types of magnetization plateau phases. The calculation of the magnetization distribution on the spin-1/2 …
Magnetic susceptibility and the magnetization process have been measured in \green polycrystal. In this compound, the magnetic manganese ion exists as Mn$^{5+}$ in a tetrahedral environment, and thus the magnetic interaction can be described by an S=1 Heisenberg model. The ground state was found to be a spin singlet with an excitation gap $Δ/k_{\rm B}=11.2$ K. Magnetization plateaus were observed at zero and at half of the saturation magnetization. These results indicate that the present system can be represented by a coupled antiferromagnetic dimer model.
We study the magnetization plateau at 1/4 of the saturation magnetization of the S=1 antiferromagnetic spin ladder both analytically and numerically, with the aim of explaining recent experimental results on BIP-TENO by Goto et al. We propose two mechanisms for the plateau formation and clarify the plateau phase diagram on the plane of the coupling constants between spins.
We investigate a simple model of a frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain coupled to adiabatic phonons under an external magnetic field. Using field theoretic methods complemented by extensive Density Matrix Renormalisation Group techniques generalized to include self-consistent lattice distortions, we show that magnetization plateaux at non-trivial rational values of the magnetization can be stabilized by the lattice coupling. We suggest that such a scenario could be relevant for some low dimensional frustrated spin-Peierls compounds.
Magnetization plateaus, visible as anomalies in magnetic susceptibility at low temperatures, are one of the hallmarks of frustrated magnetism. We show how an extremely robust half-magnetization plateau can arise from coupling between spin and lattice degrees of freedom in a pyrochlore antiferromagnet, and develop a detailed symmetry of analysis of the simplest possible scenario for such a plateau state. The application of this theory to the spinel oxides CdCr2O4 and HgCr2O4, where a robust half magnetization plateau has been observed, is discussed.
The field induced magnetic phase transitions of Cs$_2$CuBr$_4$ were investigated by means of magnetization process and neutron scattering experiments. This system undergoes magnetic phase transition at Neél temperature $T_\mathrm{N}=1.4$ K at zero field, and exhibits the magnetization plateau at approximately one third of the saturation magnetization for the field directions $H\parallel b$ and $H\parallel c$. In the present study, additional symptom of the two-third magnetization plateau was found in the field derivative of the magnetization process. The magnetic structure was found to be inco…
We study the low-energy properties and, in particular, the magnetization process of a spin-1/2 Heisenberg $J_1-J_2$ sawtooth and frustrated chain (also known as zig-zag ladder) with a spatially anisotropic $g$-factor. We treat the problem both analytically and numerically while keeping the $J_2/J_1$ ratio generic. Numerically, we use complete and Lanczos diagonalization as well as the infinite time-evolving block decimation (iTEBD) method. Analytically we employ (non-)Abelian bosonization. Additionally for the sawtooth chain, we provide an analytical description in terms of flat bands and loca…
We study the ground state of $S = 1/2$ Heisenberg model on the checkerboard lattice in a magnetic field by the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method with the sine-square deformation. We obtain magnetization plateaus at $M/M_{\rm sat}=$0, 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, and 3/4 where $M_{\rm sat}$ is the saturated magnetization. The obtained 3/4 plateau state is consistent with the exact result, and the 1/2 plateau is found to have a four-spin resonating loop structure similar to the six-spin loop structure of the 1/3 plateau of the kagome lattice. Different four-spin loop structures are obtained i…
Spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on kagome lattice is a typical frustrated quantum spin system. A basic structure of kagome lattice is also present in kagome-strip lattice in one dimension, where a similar type of frustration is expected. We thus study the magnetization plateaus of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on a kagome-strip chain with three-independent antiferromagnetic exchange interactions by the density-matrix renormalization group method. In a certain range of exchange parameters, we find twelve kinds of magnetization plateaus, nine of which have magnetic structures breaking either translati…
Unconventional features of the magnetization curve at zero temperature such as plateaus or jumps are a hallmark of frustrated spin systems. Very little is known about their behavior at non-zero temperatures. Here we investigate the temperature dependence of the magnetization curve of the kagome lattice antiferromagnet in particular at 1/3 of the saturation magnetization for large lattice sizes of up to N=48 spins. We discuss the phenomenon of asymmetric melting and trace it back to a combined effect of unbalanced magnetization steps on either side of the investigated plateau as well as on the …
Ground-state magnetization curves of ferrimagnetic Heisenberg chains of alternating spins $S$ and $s$ are numerically investigated. Calculating several cases of $(S,s)$, we conclude that the spin-$(S,s)$ chain generally exhibits $2s$ magnetization plateaux even at the most symmetric point. In the double- or more-plateau structure, the initial plateau is generated on a classical basis, whereas the higher ones are based on a quantum mechanism.
We study the one-dimensional spin-1/2 model with nearest and next-to-nearest-neighbor couplings exposed to a homogeneous magnetic field $h_{3}$ and a dimer field with period $q$ and strength $δ$. The latter generates a magnetization plateau at $M=(1-q/π)/2$, which evolves with strength $δ$ of the perturbation as $δ^ε$, where $ε=ε(h_{3},α)$ is related to the $η$-exponent which describes the critical behavior of the dimer structure factor, if the perturbation is switched of ($δ=0$). We also discuss the appearance of magnetization plateaus in ladder systems with $l$ legs.
The two-dimensional spin-gap system ${\rm SrCu_2(BO_3)_2}$ shows unique physical properties due to the low-dimensionality character and the strong quantum fluctuations. Experimentally, 1/8-, 1/4-, and 1/3-plateaus have been observed in the magnetization curve under magnetic fields up to 70 Tesla, and the 1/2-plateau is expected to be stabilized at higher magnetic fields. We argue that spin-lattice effects are necessary to describe the superstructures at the plateaus, and we propose a simple microscopic model of spins interacting adiabatically with the lattice to reproduce the main features of …
We investigate the $S=2$ antiferromagnetic quantum spin chain with the exchange and single-ion anisotropies in a magnetic field, using the numerical exact diagonalization of finite-size clusters and the level spectroscopy analysis. It is found that a magnetization plateau possibly appears at a half of the saturation magnetization for some suitable anisotropy parameters. The level spectroscopy analysis indicates that the 1/2 magnetization plateau is formed by two different mechanisms, depending on the anisotropy parameters. The phase diagram of the 1/2 plateau states and some typical magnetizat…
We study the fractionally quantized $Z_N$ Berry phase, $γ_N=0, {2π\over N}, {4π\over N},\ldots, {2(N-1)π\over N}$, to characterize local $N$-mer spin structures at magnetization plateaux in spin-1/2 Heisenberg multimer ($N$-mer) models, i.e., highly frustrated $N$-leg ladder models, which are generalizations of an orthogonal dimer chain and have exact ground states in the strong multimer coupling region. We demonstrate that all $N$ types of Berry phases, which characterize magnetization-plateau phases, appear in a magnetic phase diagram when $N=2$ and $4$. We show that magnetization plateau wi…
We unveil nontrivial topological properties of zero-temperature magnetization plateau states in periodically modulated quantum spin chains under a uniform magnetic field. As positions of plateaus are uniquely determined by the modulation period of exchange couplings, we find that the topologically nontrivial plateau state can be characterized by a nonzero integer Chern number and has nontrivial edge excitations. Our study clarifies the topological origin of the well-known phenomena of quantized magnetization plateaus in one-dimensional quantum spin systems and relates the plateau state to the …
We present numerical evidence that the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the two-dimensional checkerboard lattice exhibits several magnetization plateaux for m=0, 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4, where m is the magnetization normalized by its saturation value. These incompressible states correspond to somehow similar valence-bond crystal phases that break lattice symmetries, though they are different from the already established plaquette phase for m=0. Our results are based on Exact Diagonalization as well as Density Matrix Renormalization Group large-scale simulations, and interpreted in terms of simple trial w…
The $S=1/2$ frustrated Heisenberg chains with bond alternation is known to exhibit a magnetization plateau at half of the saturation magnetization $\Ms$ accompanied by the spontanuous translational symmetry breakdown. The effect of randomness on the magnetization process of this model is investigated. First we consider the mixture of the two kinds of chains both of which possess the $\Ms/2$-plateau in the common interval of the magnetization field. The plateau at $\Ms/2$ is found to vanish immediately if the randomness is switched on in agreement with Totsuka's prediction. The small plateau al…
We consider the phase diagram of a spatially anisotropic 2D triangular antiferromagnet in a magnetic field. Classically, the ground state is umbrella-like for all fields, but we show that the quantum phase diagram is much richer and contains a 1/3 magnetization plateau, two commensurate planar states, two incommensurate chiral umbrella phases, and, possibly, a planar state separating the two chiral phases. Our analysis sheds light on several recent experimental findings for the spin-1/2 system Cs_2CuBr_4.
We present a unified approach to the problem of degeneracy lifting in geometrically frustrated magnets with and without an external field. The method treats fluctuations around a classical spin configuration in terms of a real-space perturbation expansion. We calculate two lowest-order contributions for the Heisenberg spin Hamiltonian and use them to study the magnetization processes of spin-$S$ triangular and kagomé antiferromagnets.
We have investigated spin-wave excitations in a magnetic-field-induced 1/5-magnetization plateau phase in a triangular lattice antiferromagnet CuFeO2 (CFO), by means of inelastic neutron scattering measurements under applied magnetic fields of up to 13.4 T. Comparing the observed spectra with the calculations in which spin-lattice coupling effects for the nearest neighbor exchange interactions are taken into account, we have determined the Hamiltonian parameters in the field-induced 1/5- plateau phase, which directly show that CFO exhibits a bond order associated with the magnetic structure in…
