Conventional crystalline magnets are characterized by symmetry breaking and normal modes of excitation called magnons with quantized angular momentum . Neutron scattering correspondingly features extra magnetic Bragg diffraction at low temperatures and dispersive inelastic scattering associated with single magnon creation and annihilation. Exceptions are anticipated in socalled quantum spin liquids as exemplified by the one-dimensional spin-1/2 chain which has no magnetic order and where magnons accordingly fractionalize into spinons with angular momentum /2. This is spectacularly revealed by a continuum of inelastic neutron scattering associated with two-spinon processes and the absence of magnetic Bragg diffraction. Here, we report evidence for these same key features of a quantum spin liquid in the three-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet NaCaNi 2 F 7 . Through specific heat and neutron scattering measurements, Monte Carlo simulations, and analytic approximations to the equal time correlations, we show that NaCaNi 2 F 7 is an almost ideal realization of the spin-1 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on a pyrochlore lattice with weak connectivity and frustrated interactions. Magnetic Bragg diffraction is absent and 90% of the spectral weight forms a continuum of magnetic scattering not dissimilar to that of the spin-1/2 chain but with low energy pinch points indicating NaCaNi 2 F 7 is in a Coulomb phase. The residual entropy and diffuse elastic scattering points to an exotic state of matter driven by frustration, quantum fluctuations and weak exchange disorder.
We present a magnetic phase diagram of rare-earth pyrochlore Yb_{2}Ti_{2}O_{7} in a ⟨111⟩ magnetic field. Using heat capacity, magnetization, and neutron scattering data, we show an unusual field dependence of a first-order phase boundary, wherein a small applied field increases the ordering temperature. The zero-field ground state has ferromagnetic domains, while the spins polarize along ⟨111⟩ above 0.65 T. A classical Monte Carlo analysis of published Hamiltonians does account for the critical field in the low T limit. However, this analysis fails to account for the large bulge in the reentrant phase diagram, suggesting that either long-range interactions or quantum fluctuations govern low field properties.
We study the spin-1 pyrochlore material NaCaNi2F7 with a combination of molecular dynamics simulations, stochastic dynamical theory and linear spin wave theory. The dynamical structure factor from inelastic neutron scattering is well described with a near-ideal Heisenberg Hamiltonian incorporating small anisotropic terms and weak second-neighbor interactions. We find that all three approaches reproduce remarkably well the momentum dependence of the scattering intensity as well as its energy dependence with the exception of the lowest energies. These results are notable in that (i) the data show a complete lack of sharp quasiparticle excitations in momentum space over much, if not all, of the energy range; (ii) linear spin-wave theory appears to apply in a regime where it would be expected to fail for a number of reasons. We elucidate what underpins these surprises, and note that basic questions about the nature of quantum spin liquidity in such systems pose themselves as a result. arXiv:1810.09481v1 [cond-mat.str-el]
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