Investigation of materials that exhibit quantum phase transition provides valuable insights into fundamental problems in physics. We present neutron scattering under pressure in a triangular-lattice antiferromagnet which has a quantum disorder in the low-pressure phase and a noncollinear structure in the high-pressure phase. The neutron spectrum continuously evolves through the critical pressure; a single mode in the disordered state becomes soft with the pressure, and it splits into gapless and gapped modes in the ordered phase. Extended spin-wave theory reveals that the longitudinal and transverse fluctuations of spins are hybridized in the modes because of the noncollinearity, and novel magnetic excitations are formed. We report a new hybridization of the phase and amplitude fluctuations of the order parameter in a spontaneously symmetry-broken state.
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.
The local atomic and magnetic structures of the compounds $A$MnO$_2$ ($A$ = Na, Cu), which realize a geometrically frustrated, spatially anisotropic triangular lattice of Mn spins, have been investigated by atomic and magnetic pair distribution function analysis of neutron total scattering data. Relief of frustration in CuMnO$_2$ is accompanied by a conventional cooperative symmetry-lowering lattice distortion driven by Neel order. In NaMnO$_2$, however, the distortion has a short-range nature. A cooperative interaction between the locally broken symmetry and short-range magnetic correlations lifts the magnetic degeneracy on a nanometer length scale, enabling long-range magnetic order in the Na-derivative. The degree of frustration, mediated by residual disorder, contributes to the rather differing pathways to a single, stable magnetic ground state in these two related compounds. This study demonstrates how nanoscale structural distortions that cause local-scale perturbations can lift the ground state degeneracy and trigger macroscopic magnetic order.
This work examines the critical anisotropy required for the local stability of the collinear ground states of a geometrically-frustrated triangular-lattice antiferromagnet (TLA). Using a Holstein-Primakoff expansion, we calculate the spin-wave frequencies for the 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8-sublattice (SL) ground states of a TLA with up to third neighbor interactions. Local stability requires that all spin-wave frequencies are real and positive. The 2, 4, and 8-SL phases break up into several regions where the critical anisotropy is a different function of the exchange parameters. We find that the critical anisotropy is a continuous function everywhere except across the 2-SL/3-SL and 3-SL/4-SL phase boundaries, where the 3-SL phase has the higher critical anisotropy.
The spin wave excitations of the geometrically frustrated triangular lattice antiferromagnet (TLA) $rm CuFeO_2$ have been measured using high resolution inelastic neutron scattering. Antiferromagnetic interactions up to third nearest neighbors in the ab plane (J_1, J_2, J_3, with $J_2/J_1 approx 0.44$ and $J_3/J_1 approx 0.57$), as well as out-of-plane coupling (J_z, with $J_z/J_1 approx 0.29$) are required to describe the spin wave dispersion relations, indicating a three dimensional character of the magnetic interactions. Two energy dips in the spin wave dispersion occur at the incommensurate wavevectors associated with multiferroic phase, and can be interpreted as dynamic precursors to the magnetoelectric behavior in this system.
Spin wave dispersion in the frustrated fcc type-III antiferromagnet MnS$_2$ has been determined by inelastic neutron scattering using a triple-axis spectrometer. Existence of multiple spin wave branches, with significant separation between high-energy and low-energy modes highlighting the intrinsic magnetic frustration effect on the fcc lattice, is explained in terms of a spin wave analysis carried out for the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model for this $S=5/2$ system with nearest and next-nearest-neighbor exchange interactions. Comparison of the calculated dispersion with spin wave measurement also reveals small suppression of magnetic frustration resulting from reduced exchange interaction between frustrated spins, possibly arising from anisotropic deformation of the cubic structure.