No Arabic abstract
We report the discovery of a field driven transition from a striped to woven Spin Density Wave (SDW) in the tetragonal heavy fermion compound CeAuSb$_2$. Polarized along $bf c$, the sinusoidal SDW amplitude is 1.8(2) $mu_B$/Ce for $T ll T_N$=6.25(10) K with wavevector ${bf q}_{1}=( eta, eta, frac{1}{2} )$ ($eta=0.136(2)$). For ${bf H}parallel{bf c}$, harmonics appearing at $2{bf q}_{1}$ evidence a striped magnetic texture below $mu_circ H_{c1}=2.78(1)$ T. Above $H_{c1}$, these are replaced by woven harmonics at ${bf q}_{1}+{bf q}_2=(2eta, 0, 0)+{bf c}^*$ until $mu_circ H_{c2}=5.42(5)$ T, where satellites vanish and magnetization non-linearly approaches saturation at 1.64(2) $mu_B$/Ce for $mu_circ Happrox 7$ T.
We report a field-temperature phase diagram and an entropy map for the heavy fermion compound CeAuSb$_2$. CeAuSb$_2$ orders antiferromagnetically below $T_N=6.6$~K, and has two metamagnetic transitions, at 2.8 and 5.6~T. The locations of the critical endpoints of the metamagnetic transitions, which may play a strong role in the putative quantum criticality of CeAuSb$_2$ and related compounds, are identified. The entropy map reveals an apparent entropy balance with Fermi liquid behavior, implying that above the N{e}el transition the Ce moments are incorporated into the Fermi liquid. High-field data showing that the magnetic behavior is remarkably anisotropic are also reported.
We present results of measurements of resistivity of CAS{} under the combination of $c$-axis magnetic field and in-plane uniaxial stress. In unstressed CAS{} there are two magnetic phases. The low-field A phase is a single-component spin-density wave (SDW), with $mathbf{q} = (eta, pm eta, 1/2)$, and the high-field B phase consists of microscopically coexisting $(eta, eta, 1/2)$ and $(eta, -eta, 1/2)$ spin-density waves. Pressure along a $langle 100 rangle$ lattice direction is a transverse field to both of these phases, and so initially has little effect, however eventually induces new low- and high-field phases in which the principal axes of the SDW components appear to have rotated to the $langle 100 rangle$ directions. Under this strong $langle 100 rangle$ compression, the field evolution of the resistivity is much smoother than at zero strain: In zero strain, there is a strong first-order transition, while under strong $langle 100 rangle$ it becomes much broader. We hypothesize that this is a consequence of the uniaxial stress lifting the degeneracy between the (100) and (010) directions.
At ambient pressure and zero field, tetragonal CeAuSb$_{2}$ hosts stripe antiferromagnetic order at $T_{N} = 6.3$ K. Here we first show via bulk thermodynamic probes and x-ray diffraction measurements that this magnetic order is connected with a structural phase transition to a superstructure which likely breaks $C_{4}$ symmetry, thus signaling nematic order. The temperature-field-pressure phase diagram of CeAuSb$_{2}$ subsequently reveals the emergence of additional ordered states under applied pressure at a multicritical point. Our phenomenological model supports the presence of a vestigial nematic phase in CeAuSb$_{2}$ akin to iron-based high-temperature superconductors; however, superconductivity, if present, remains to be discovered.
We develop a strong coupling approach towards quantum magnetism in Mott insulators for Wannier obstructed bands. Despite the lack of Wannier orbitals, electrons can still singly occupy a set of exponentially-localized but nonorthogonal orbitals to minimize the repulsive interaction energy. We develop a systematic method to establish an effective spin model from the electron Hamiltonian using a diagrammatic approach. The nonorthogonality of the Mott basis gives rise to multiple new channels of spin-exchange (or permutation) interactions beyond Hartree-Fock and superexchange terms. We apply this approach to a Kagome lattice model of interacting electrons in Wannier obstructed bands (including both Chern bands and fragile topological bands). Due to the orbital nonorthogonality, as parameterized by the nearest neighbor orbital overlap $g$, this model exhibits stable ferromagnetism up to a finite bandwidth $Wsim U g$, where $U$ is the interaction strength. This provides an explanation for the experimentally observed robust ferromagnetism in Wannier obstructed bands. The effective spin model constructed through our approach also opens up the possibility for frustrated quantum magnetism around the ferromagnet-antiferromagnet crossover in Wannier obstructed bands.
We study the response of the antiferromagnetism of CeAuSb$_2$ to orthorhombic lattice distortion applied through in-plane uniaxial pressure. The response to pressure applied along a $langle 110 rangle$ lattice direction shows a first-order transition at zero pressure, which shows that the magnetic order lifts the $(110)/(1bar{1}0)$ symmetry of the unstressed lattice. Sufficient $langle 100 rangle$ pressure appears to rotate the principal axes of the order from $langle 110 rangle$ to $langle 100 rangle$. At low $langle 100 rangle$ pressure, the transition at $T_N$ is weakly first-order, however it becomes continuous above a threshold $langle 100 rangle$ pressure. We discuss the possibility that this behavior is driven by order parameter fluctuations, with the restoration of a continuous transition a result of reducing the point-group symmetry of the lattice.