Spin correlations in the two-dimensional spin-5/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet

We report a neutron scattering study of the instantaneous spin correlations in the two-dimensional spin S =5/2 square-lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet Rb₂MnF₄. The measured correlation lengths are quantitatively described, with no adjustable parameters, by high-temperature series expansion results and by a theory based on the quantum self-consistent harmonic approximation. Conversely, we find that the data, which cover the range from about 1 to 50 lattice constants, are outside of the regime corresponding to renormalized classical behavior of the quantum non-linear model. In addition, we observe a crossover from Heisenberg to Ising critical behavior near the Néel temperature; this crossover is well described by a mean-field model with no adjustable parameters. Received: 3 March 1998 / Received in final form: 4 May 1998 / Accepted: 19 May 1998     

Novel longitudinal mode in the coupled quantum chain compound KCuF3

Inelastic neutron scattering measurements are reported that show a new longitudinal mode in the antiferromagnetically ordered phase of the spin- 1/2 quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnet KCuF3. This mode signals the crossover from one-dimensional to three-dimensional behavior and indicates a reduction in the ordered spin moment of a spin- 1/2 antiferromagnet. The measurements are compared with recent quantum field theory calculations and are found to be in excellent agreement. A feature of the data not predicted by theory is a damping of the mode by decay processes to the transverse spin-wave branches.     

Indications of c-axis Charge Transport in Hole Doped Triangular Antiferromagnets

The c-axis charge transport of the hole doped triangular antiferromagnet is investigated within the tJ model by considering the incoherent interlayer hopping.It is shown that the c-axis charge transport of the hole doped triangular antiferromagnet is essentially determined by the scattering from the in-plane fluctuation.The c-axis conductivity spectrum shows a lov-energy peak and the unusual high-energy broad band,while the c-axis resistivity is characterized by a crossover from the high temperature metallic-like behavior to the Iow temperature insulating-like behavior,which is qualitatively consistent with those of the hole doped square lattice antiferromagnet.     

Unconventional dynamics in triangular Heisenberg antiferromagnet NaCrO2

We report magnetization, specific heat, muon spin rotation, and Na NMR measurements on the S=3/2 rhombohedrally stacked Heisenberg antiferromagnet NaCrO2. This compound appears to be a good candidate for the study of isotropic triangular Heisenberg antiferromagnets with very weak interlayer coupling. While specific heat and magnetization measurements indicate the onset of a transition in the range Tc approximately 40-50 K, both muon spin rotation and NMR reveal a fluctuating crossover regime extending well below Tc, with a peak of relaxation rate T1(-1) around T approximately 25 K. This novel finding is discussed within the context of excitations in the triangular Heisenberg antiferromagnets.     

Field-induced freezing of a quantum spin liquid on the kagome lattice

We report (17)O NMR measurements in the S=1/2 (Cu(2+)) kagome antiferromagnet Herbertsmithite ZnCu(3)(OH)(6)Cl(2) down to 45 mK in magnetic fields ranging from 2 to 12 T. While Herbertsmithite displays a gapless spin-liquid behavior in zero field, we uncover an instability toward a spin-solid phase at sub-Kelvin temperature induced by an applied magnetic field. The latter phase shows largely suppressed moments ?0.1 μ(B) and gapped excitations. The H-T phase diagram suggests the existence of a quantum critical point at the small but finite magnetic field μ(0)H(c)=1.55(25) T. We discuss this finding in light of the perturbative Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction which was theoretically proposed to sustain a quantum critical regime for the quantum kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet model.     

63Cu, 35Cl, and 1H NMR in the S=1/2 Kagome lattice ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2

ZnCu(3)(OH)(6)Cl(2) (S=1/2) is a promising new candidate for an ideal Kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet, because there is no magnetic phase transition down to approximately 50 mK. We investigated its local magnetic and lattice environments with NMR techniques. We demonstrate that the intrinsic local spin susceptibility decreases toward T=0, but that slow freezing of the lattice near approximately 50 K, presumably associated with OH bonds, contributes to a large increase of local spin susceptibility and its distribution. Spin dynamics near T=0 obey a power-law behavior in high magnetic fields.     

Weak Ferromagnetism and Field-Induced Spin Reorientation in K2V3O8

Magnetization and neutron diffraction studies of the 2D S = 1/2 antiferromagnet, K2V3O8, indicate an ordered state exhibiting weak ferromagnetism and field-induced spin reorientations. Of particular interest is the behavior in a basal plane magnetic field where a unique spin reorientation is observed in which the spins rotate from the easy c axis to the basal plane while remaining normal to the applied field. The experimental observations are well described by a two spin exchange model incorporating Heisenberg and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions with an additional c-axis anisotropy.     

Novel ordering of an S = 1/2 quasi-1d Ising-like antiferromagnet in magnetic field

High-field specific heat measurements on BaCo(2)V(2)O(8), which is a good realization of an S=1/2 quasi-one-dimensional (1D) Ising-like antifferomagnet, have been performed in magnetic fields up to 12 T along the chain and at temperature down to 200 mK. We have found a new magnetic ordered state in the field-induced phase above H(c) approximately 3.9 T. We suggest that a novel type of the incommensurate order, which is caused by the quantum effect inherent in the S=1/2 quasi-1D Ising-like antiferromagnet, appears in the field-induced phase.     

Heat capacity of a Cr2O3 antiferromagnet near the critical temperature

The heat capacity of a Cr₂O₃ antiferromagnet near the critical temperature is precisely measured by ac calorimetry. The critical behavior of the heat capacity is examined. The regularities of variations in the universal critical parameters near the critical point are determined, and their values are calculated. A crossover from the Heisenberg (n=3) to the Ising (n=1) critical behavior is revealed.     

Refining the spin Hamiltonian in the spin-1/2 kagome lattice antiferromagnet ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2 using single crystals

We report thermodynamic measurements of the S=1/2 kagome lattice antiferromagnet ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2, a promising candidate system with a spin-liquid ground state. Using single crystal samples, the magnetic susceptibility both perpendicular and parallel to the kagome plane has been measured. A small, temperature-dependent anisotropy has been observed, where χ(z)/χ(p)>1 at high temperatures and χ(z)/χ(p)<1 at low temperatures. Fits of the high-temperature data to a Curie-Weiss model also reveal an anisotropy. By comparing with theoretical calculations, the presence of a small easy-axis exchange anisotropy can be deduced as the primary perturbation to the dominant Heisenberg nearest neighbor interaction. These results have great bearing on the interpretation of theoretical calculations based on the kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet model to the experiments on ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2.     

Field-induced order-disorder transition in antiferromagnetic BaCo(2)V(2)O(8) driven by a softening of spinon excitation

High field magnetization and ESR measurements on the quasi-one-dimensional (1D) antiferromagnet BaCo(2)V(2)O(8) have been performed in magnetic fields up to 50 T along the chain. The experimental results are explained well in terms of a 1D S=1/2 antiferromagnetic XXZ model in longitudinal fields. We show that the quantum phase transition from the Néel ordered phase to the spin liquid one in the model is responsible for a peculiar order to disorder transition in BaCo(2)V(2)O(8).     

PARABOLIC APPROXIMATION OF THE SPECIFIC HEAT IN QUANTUM XY SPIN GLASS MODEL WITH PLANAR DZYALOSHINSKII-MORIYA INTERACTIONS IN LONGITUDINAL FIELD

The quantum infinite range XY spin glass model with the infinite range planar Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in external field for spin S=1/2 is investigated theoretically. Numerical calculations show that, the specific heat depending on the temperature has crossover behavior; the weak field dependence of the specific heat can be fitted by the parabolic approximation, C/T=A+Bh², the coefficient B is peaked near the transition point.     

Magnon decay in noncollinear quantum antiferromagnets

Instability of the excitation spectrum of an ordered noncollinear Heisenberg antiferromagnet with respect to spontaneous two-magnon decays is investigated. We use a spin-1/2 antiferromagnet on a triangular lattice as an example and examine the characteristic long- and short-wavelength features of its zero-temperature spectrum within the 1/S approximation. The kinematic conditions are shown to be crucial for the existence of decays and for overall properties of the spectrum. The XXZ and the J-J generalizations of the model, as well as the role of higher-order corrections, are discussed.     

Quantum magnetism in the paratacamite family: towards an ideal kagomé lattice

We report muon spin rotation measurements on the S=1/2 (Cu2+) paratacamite ZnxCu4-x(OH)6Cl2 family. Despite a Weiss temperature of approximately -300 K, the x=1 compound is found to have no transition to a magnetic frozen state down to 50 mK as theoretically expected for the kagomé Heisenberg antiferromagnet. We find that the limit between a dynamical and a partly frozen ground state occurs around x=0.5. For x=1, we discuss the relevance to a singlet picture.     

Dynamic spin-glass behavior in a disorder-free,two-component model of quantum frustrated magnets

Motivated by the observation of a spin-glass transition in almost disorder-free Kagome antiferromagnets, and by the specific form of the effective low-energy model of the S = 1/2, trimerized Kagome antiferromagnet, we investigate the possibility to obtain a spin-glass behavior in two-component, disorder-free models. We concentrate on a toy-model, a modified Ashkin-Teller model in a magnetic field that couples only to one species of spins, for which we prove that a dynamic spin-glass behavior occurs. The dynamics of the magnetization is closely related to that of the underlying Ising model in zero field in which spins and pseudo-spins are intimately coupled. The spin-glass like history dependence of the magnetization is a consequence of the ageing of the underlying Ising model. Received 21 September 2001 and Received in final form 16 January 2002     

Spin disorder and order in quasi-2D triangular Heisenberg antiferromagnets: comparative study of FeGa2S4, Fe2Ga2S5, and NiGa2S4

Our single crystal study reveals that the single-layer S=2 triangular Heisenberg antiferromagnet FeGa2S4 forms a frozen spin-disordered state, similar to the S=1 isostructural magnet NiGa2S4. In this state, the magnetic specific heat C{M} is not only insensitive to the field, but shows a T2 dependence that scales to C{M} of NiGa2S4, suggesting the same underlying mechanism of the 2D coherent behavior. In contrast, the bilayer system Fe2Ga2S5 exhibits a 3D antiferromagnetic order.     

A theoretical study of the long-range-disorder mixed-spin antiferromagnet L2BaNiO5

In this paper, we introduce a quasi-one-dimensional S = 1 antiferromagnet Heisenberg model, and some physical properties of antiferromagnet L2BaNiO5 without frame of two-time Green's function theory. In a high temperature region, we calculate the correlation functions, and obtain excitation spectrum along Ni chains and the Haldane gap in this spectrum versus temperature. We find that the short-range correlation still exists at high temperature, which leads to the existence of Haldane gap in excitation spectrum. The increment of excitation energy in the spectrum along the Ni chain is found to be induced by the AF interaction between spins of rare-earth and Ni ions. Additionally, we also find that Haldane gap goes up with temperature increasing.     

Impurity induced spin texture in quantum critical 2D antiferromagnets

We describe the uniform and staggered magnetization distributions around a vacancy in a quantum critical two-dimensional S=1/2 antiferromagnet. The distributions are delocalized across the entire sample with a universal functional form arising from an uncompensated Berry phase. The numerical results, obtained using quantum Monte Carlo simulations of the Heisenberg model on bilayer lattices with up to approximately equal to 10(5) spins, are in good agreement with the proposed scaling structure. We determine the exponent eta' = 0.40+/-0.02, which governs both the staggered and uniform magnetic structure away from the impurity and also controls the impurity spin dynamics.     

Experimental realization of a 2D fractional quantum spin liquid

The ground-state ordering and dynamics of the two-dimensional S = 1/2 frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnet Cs(2)CuCl(4) are explored using neutron scattering in high magnetic fields. We find that the dynamic correlations show a highly dispersive continuum of excited states, characteristic of the resonating valence bond state, arising from pairs of S = 1/2 spinons. Quantum renormalization factors for the excitation energies (1.65) and incommensuration (0.56) are large.     

Zeeman levels with exotic field dependence in the high field phase of an S=1 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain

We have performed electron spin resonance measurements over a wide frequency and magnetic field range on a single crystal of the S=1 quasi-one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet Ni(C5H14N2)2N3(PF6). We observed gapped excitation branches above the critical field H(c) where the Haldane gap closes. These branches are analyzed by a phenomenological field theory using the complex-field phi(4) model. A satisfactory agreement between experiment and theory is obtained.