No Arabic abstract
Single-chain magnets are molecular spin chains displaying slow relaxation of the magnetisation on a macroscopic time scale. To this similarity with single-molecule magnets they own their name. In this chapter the distinctive features of single-chain magnets as opposed to their precursors will be pinpointed. In particular, we will show how their behaviour is dictated by the physics of thermally-excited domain walls. The basic concepts needed to understand and model single-chain magnets will also be reviewed.
The field-induced transition in one-dimensional S=1 Heisenberg antiferromagnet with single-ion anisotropy in the presence of a transverse magnetic field is obtained on the basis of the Schwinger boson mean-field theory. The behaviors of the specific heat and susceptibility as functions of temperature as well as the applied transverse field are explored, which are found to be different from the results obtained under a longitudinal field. The anomalies of the specific heat at low temperatures, which might be an indicative of a field-induced transition from a Luttinger liquid phase to an ordered phase, are explicitly uncovered under the transverse field. A schematic phase diagram is proposed. The theoretical results are compared with experimental observations.
In this work we study theoretically the coupling of single molecule magnets (SMMs) to a variety of quantum circuits, including microwave resonators with and without constrictions and flux qubits. The main results of this study is that it is possible to achieve strong and ultrastrong coupling regimes between SMM crystals and the superconducting circuit, with strong hints that such a coupling could also be reached for individual molecules close to constrictions. Building on the resulting coupling strengths and the typical coherence times of these molecules (of the order of microseconds), we conclude that SMMs can be used for coherent storage and manipulation of quantum information, either in the context of quantum computing or in quantum simulations. Throughout the work we also discuss in detail the family of molecules that are most suitable for such operations, based not only on the coupling strength, but also on the typical energy gaps and the simplicity with which they can be tuned and oriented. Finally, we also discuss practical advantages of SMMs, such as the possibility to fabricate the SMMs ensembles on the chip through the deposition of small droplets.
The compound CaV2O4 contains V^{+3} cations with spin S = 1 and has an orthorhombic structure at room temperature containing zigzag chains of V atoms running along the c-axis. We have grown single crystals of CaV2O4 and report crystallography, static magnetization, magnetic susceptibility chi, ac magnetic susceptibility, heat capacity Cp, and thermal expansion measurements in the temperature T range of 1.8-350 K on the single crystals and on polycrystalline samples. An orthorhombic to monoclinic structural distortion and a long-range antiferromagnetic (AF) transition were found at sample-dependent temperatures T_S approx 108-145 K and T_N approx 51-76 K, respectively. In two annealed single crystals, another transition was found at approx 200 K. In one of the crystals, this transition is mostly due to V2O3 impurity phase that grows coherently in the crystals during annealing. However, in the other crystal the origin of this transition at 200 K is unknown. The chi(T) shows a broad maximum at approx 300 K associated with short-range AF ordering and the anisotropy of chi above T_N is small. The anisotropic chi(T to 0) data below T_N show that the (average) easy axis of the AF magnetic structure is the b-axis. The Cp(T) data indicate strong short-range AF ordering above T_N, consistent with the chi(T) data. We fitted our chi(T) data near room temperature by a J1-J2 S = 1 Heisenberg chain model, where J1(J2) is the (next)-nearest-neighbor exchange interaction. We find J1 approx 230 K, and surprisingly, J2/J1 approx 0 (or J1/J2 approx 0). The interaction J_perp between these S = 1 chains leading to long-range AF ordering at T_N is estimated to be J_perp/J_1 gtrsim 0.04.
The spin-liquid phase of two highly frustrated pyrochlore magnets Gd2Ti2O7 and Gd2Sn2O7 is probed using electron spin resonance in the temperature range 1.3 - 30 K. The deviation of the absorption line from the paramagnetic position u =gamma H observed in both compounds below the Curie-Weiss temperature Theta_CW ~ 10 K, suggests an opening up of a gap in the excitation spectra. On cooling to 1.3 K (which is above the ordering transition T_N ~ 1.0 K) the resonance spectrum is transformed into a wide band of excitations with the gap amounting to Delta ~ 26 GHz (1.2 K) in Gd2Ti2O7 and 18 GHz (0.8 K) in Gd2Sn2O7. The gaps increase linearly with the external magnetic field. For Gd2Ti2O7 this branch co-exists with an additional nearly paramagnetic line absent in Gd2Sn2O7. These low lying excitations with gaps, which are preformed in the spin-liquid state, may be interpreted as collective spin modes split by the single-ion anisotropy.
We use a recently developed interpretable and unsupervised machine-learning method, the tensorial kernel support vector machine (TK-SVM), to investigate the low-temperature classical phase diagram of a generalized Heisenberg-Kitaev-$Gamma$ ($J$-$K$-$Gamma$) model on a honeycomb lattice. Aside from reproducing phases reported by previous quantum and classical studies, our machine finds a hitherto missed nested zigzag-stripy order and establishes the robustness of a recently identified modulated $S_3 times Z_3$ phase, which emerges through the competition between the Kitaev and $Gamma$ spin liquids, against Heisenberg interactions. The results imply that, in the restricted parameter space spanned by the three primary exchange interactions -- $J$, $K$, and $Gamma$, the representative Kitaev material $alpha$-${rm RuCl}_3$ lies close to the boundaries of several phases, including a simple ferromagnet, the unconventional $S_3 times Z_3$ and nested zigzag-stripy magnets. A zigzag order is stabilized by a finite $Gamma^{prime}$ and/or $J_3$ term, whereas the four magnetic orders may compete in particular if $Gamma^{prime}$ is anti-ferromagnetic.