Quantum phase transitions take place between distinct phases of matter at zero temperature. Near the transition point, exotic quantum symmetries can emerge that govern the excitation spectrum of the system. A symmetry described by the E8 Lie group with a spectrum of 8 particles was long predicted to appear near the critical point of an Ising chain. We realize this system experimentally by tuning the quasi-one-dimensional Ising ferromagnet CoNb 2 O 6 through its critical point using strong transverse magnetic fields. The spin excitations are observed to change character from pairs of kinks in the ordered phase to spin-flips in the paramagnetic phase. Just below the critical field, the spin dynamics shows a fine structure with two sharp modes at low energies, in a ratio that approaches the golden mean as predicted for the first two meson particles of the E8 spectrum. Our results demonstrate the power of symmetry to describe complex quantum behaviours.

Sources of magnetic fields-magnetic monopoles-have so far proven elusive as elementary particles. Condensed-matter physicists have recently proposed several scenarios of emergent quasiparticles resembling monopoles. A particularly simple proposition pertains to spin ice on the highly frustrated pyrochlore lattice. The spin-ice state is argued to be well described by networks of aligned dipoles resembling solenoidal tubes-classical, and observable, versions of a Dirac string. Where these tubes end, the resulting defects look like magnetic monopoles. We demonstrated, by diffuse neutron scattering, the presence of such strings in the spin ice dysprosium titanate (Dy2Ti2O7). This is achieved by applying a symmetry-breaking magnetic field with which we can manipulate the density and orientation of the strings. In turn, heat capacity is described by a gas of magnetic monopoles interacting via a magnetic Coulomb interaction.

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The phase diagram in temperature and magnetic field of the metal-organic, two-leg, spin-ladder compound (C5H12N)2CuBr4 is studied by measurements of the specific heat and the magnetocaloric effect. We demonstrate the presence of an extended spin Luttinger-liquid phase between two fieldinduced quantum critical points and over a broad range of temperature. Based on an ideal spinladder Hamiltonian, comprehensive numerical modelling of the ladder specific heat yields excellent quantitative agreement with the experimental data across the complete phase diagram. Quantum spin systems display a remarkable diversity of fascinating physical behavior. This is especially true for systems such as spin ladders, which have a gapped or a gapless ground state, respectively, for an even or an odd number of ladder legs [1]. For two-leg ladders, and in general for any even leg number, quantum phase transitions (QPTs) between gapped and gapless phases can be driven by an external magnetic field. While these QPTs are generic in quantum magnets [2], the nature of the gapless phase depends crucially on the dimensionality of the spin system. In two and higher dimensions, a quantum critical point (QCP) separates the low-field, quantum disordered (QD) phase, with gapped triplet excitations, from a gapless phase with long-range antiferromagnetic (AF) order, which can be well described as a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) of magnons [2,3,4].By contrast, for one-dimensional (1D) systems such as ladders, both long-ranged magnetic order and BEC are precluded due to phase fluctuations. In addition, spin excitations are best viewed as interacting fermions, whereas a bosonic representation pertains in higher dimensions. The physics of the gapless phase in 1D is thus quite different. It is a (spin) Luttinger liquid (LL) [5], and is a key component of the rich phase diagram presented in Fig. 1 [3 , 6, 7, 8, 9]. In the LL, the spectrum is gapless with algebraically decaying spin correlations. Because there is no finite order parameter, the LL regime is reached from the high-temperature, classical regime through a crossover rather than a phase transition. Nevertheless, clear manifestations of LL behavior are expected not only in the correlation functions but also in thermodynamic quantities such as the magnetization and specific heat. and Bs (spin system fully polarized). The contour plot shows the magnetic specific heat as Cm(T, B)/T . Local maxima from the reduction of the triplet gap by the Zeeman effect are indicated by crosses. Circles denote the LL crossover based on measurements of the magnetocaloric effect [ Fig. 4], black lines are fits to extract the critical fields, and the dashed blue line indicates the onset of long-ranged order below 100 mK [21,22]. Inset: lattice structure of (Hpip)2CuBr4 in projection along the b-axis, with Cu atoms blue and Br white.However, materials in which to explore such effects are rather rare. Investigations of the spin excitations and arXiv:0808.2715v2 [cond-mat.str-el]

We measure by inelastic neutron scattering the spin excitation spectra as a function of applied magnetic field in the quantum spin-ladder material (C5H12N)2CuBr4. Discrete magnon modes at low fields in the quantum disordered phase and at high fields in the saturated phase contrast sharply with a spinon continuum at intermediate fields characteristic of the Luttinger-liquid phase. By tuning the magnetic field, we drive the fractionalization of magnons into spinons and, in this deconfined regime, observe both commensurate and incommensurate continua.