No Arabic abstract
We consider magnon excitations in the spin-glass phase of geometrically frustrated antiferromagnets with weak exchange disorder, focussing on the nearest-neighbour pyrochlore-lattice Heisenberg model at large spin. The low-energy degrees of freedom in this system are represented by three copies of a U(1) emergent gauge field, related by global spin-rotation symmetry. We show that the Goldstone modes associated with spin-glass order are excitations of these gauge fields, and that the standard theory of Goldstone modes in Heisenberg spin glasses (due to Halperin and Saslow) must be modified in this setting.
We study properties of thermal transport and quantum many-body chaos in a lattice model with $Ntoinfty$ oscillators per site, coupled by strong nonlinear terms. We first consider a model with only optical phonons. We find that the thermal diffusivity $D_{rm th}$ and chaos diffusivity $D_L$ (defined as $D_L = v_B^2/ lambda_L$, where $v_B$ and $lambda_L$ are the butterfly velocity and the scrambling rate, respectively) satisfy $D_{rm th} approx gamma D_L$ with $gammagtrsim 1$. At intermediate temperatures, the model exhibits a ``quantum phonon fluid regime, where both diffusivities satisfy $D^{-1} propto T$, and the thermal relaxation time and inverse scrambling rate are of the order the of Planckian timescale $hbar/k_B T$. We then introduce acoustic phonons to the model and study their effect on transport and chaos. The long-wavelength acoustic modes remain long-lived even when the system is strongly coupled, due to Goldstones theorem. As a result, for $d=1,2$, we find that $D_{rm th}/D_Lto infty$, while for $d=3$, $D_{rm th}$ and $D_{L}$ remain comparable.
Building upon techniques employed in the construction of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model, which is a solvable $0+1$ dimensional model of a non-Fermi liquid, we develop a solvable, infinite-ranged random-hopping model of fermions coupled to fluctuating U(1) gauge fields. In a specific large-$N$ limit, our model realizes a gapless non-Fermi liquid phase, which combines the effects of hopping and interaction terms. We derive the thermodynamic properties of the non-Fermi liquid phase realized by this model, and the charge transport properties of an infinite-dimensional version with spatial structure.
We propose quenched disorders could bring novel quantum excitations and models to certain quantum magnets. Motivated by the recent experiments on the quantum Ising magnet TmMgGaO$_4$, we explore the effects of the quenched disorder and the interlayer coupling in this triangular lattice Ising antiferromagnet. It is pointed out that the weak quenched (non-magnetic) disorder would convert the emergent 2D Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) phase and the critical region into a gauge glass. There will be an emergent Halperin-Saslow mode associated with this gauge glass. Using the Imry-Ma argument, we further explain the fate of the finite-field $C_3$ symmetry breaking transition at the low temperatures. The ferromagnetic interlayer coupling would suppress the BKT phase and generate a tiny ferromagnetism. With the quenched disorders, this interlayer coupling changes the 2D gauge glass into a 3D gauge glass, and the Halperin-Saslow mode persists. This work merely focuses on addressing a phase regime in terms of emergent U(1) gauge glass behaviors and hope to inspire future works and thoughts in weakly disordered frustrated magnets in general.
The kagome lattice -- a two-dimensional (2D) arrangement of corner-sharing triangles -- is at the forefront of the search for exotic states generated by magnetic frustration. Such states have been observed experimentally for Heisenberg and planar spins. In contrast, frustration of Ising spins on the kagome lattice has previously been restricted to nano-fabricated systems and spin-ice materials under applied magnetic field. Here, we show that the layered Ising magnet Dy3Mg2Sb3O14 hosts an emergent order predicted theoretically for individual kagome layers of in-plane Ising spins. Neutron-scattering and bulk thermomagnetic measurements, supported by Monte Carlo simulations, reveal a phase transition at T* = 0.3 K from a disordered spin-ice like regime to an emergent charge ordered state in which emergent charge degrees of freedom exhibit three-dimensional order while spins remain partially disordered. Our results establish Dy3Mg2Sb3O14 as a tuneable system to study interacting emergent charges arising from kagome Ising frustration.
Frustrated systems are ubiquitous and interesting because their behavior is difficult to predict. Magnetism offers extreme examples in the form of spin lattices where all interactions between spins cannot be simultaneously satisfied. Such geometrical frustration leads to macroscopic degeneracies, and offers the possibility of qualitatively new states of matter whose nature has yet to be fully understood. Here we have discovered how novel composite spin degrees of freedom can emerge from frustrated interactions in the cubic spinel ZnCr2O4. Upon cooling, groups of six spins self-organize into weakly interacting antiferromagnetic loops whose directors, defined as the unique direction along which the spins are aligned parallel or antiparallel, govern all low temperature dynamics. The experimental evidence comes from a measurement of the magnetic form factor by inelastic neutron scattering. While the data bears no resemblance to the atomic form factor for chromium, they are perfectly consistent with the form factor for hexagonal spin loop directors. The hexagon directors are to a first approximation decoupled from each other and hence their reorientations embody the long-sought local zero energy modes for the pyrochlore lattice.