We show that temperature and magnetic field properties of the entanglement between spins on the two-dimensional Shastry-Sutherland lattice can be qualitatively described by analytical results for a qubit tetramer. Exact diagonalization of clusters with up to 20 sites reveals that the regime of fully entangled neighboring pairs coincides with the regime of finite spin gap in the spectrum. Additionally, the results for the regime of vanishing spin gap are discussed and related to the Heisenberg limit of the model.
We investigate classical Heisenberg spins on the Shastry-Sutherland lattice and under an external magnetic field. A detailed study is carried out both analytically and numerically by means of classical Monte-Carlo simulations. Magnetization pseudo-plateaux are observed around 1/3 of the saturation magnetization for a range of values of the magnetic couplings. We show that the existence of the pseudo-plateau is due to an entropic selection of a particular collinear state. A phase diagram that shows the domains of existence of those pseudo-plateaux in the $(h, T)$ plane is obtained.
Weyl semimetal is a topologically non-trivial phase of matter with pairs of Weyl nodes in the k-space, which act as monopole and anti-monopole pairs of Berry curvature. Two hallmarks of the Weyl metallic state are the topological surface state called the Fermi arc and the chiral anomaly. It is known that the chiral anomaly yields anomalous magneto-transport phenomena. In this study, we report the emergence of the type-II Weyl semimetallic state in the geometrically frustrated non-collinear antiferromagnetic Shastry-Sutherland lattice (SSL) GdB4 crystal. When we apply magnetic fields perpendicular to the noncollinear moments in SSL plane, Weyl nodes are created above and below the Fermi energy along the M-A line (tau-band) because the spin tilting breaks the time-reversal symmetry and lifts band degeneracy while preserving C4z or C2z symmetry. The unique electronic structure of GdB4 under magnetic fields applied perpendicular to the SSL gives rise to a non-trivial Berry phase, detected in de Haas-van Alphen experiments and chiral-anomaly-induced negative magnetoresistance. The emergence of the magnetic field-induced Weyl state in SSL presents a new guiding principle to develop novel types of Weyl semimetals in frustrated spin systems.
Neutron diffraction measurements were carried out on single crystals and powders of Yb2Pt2Pb, where Yb moments form planes of orthogonal dimers in the frustrated Shastry-Sutherland Lattice (SSL). Yb2Pt2Pb orders antiferromagnetically at TN=2.07 K, and the magnetic structure determined from these measurements features the interleaving of two orthogonal sublattices into a 5*5*1 magnetic supercell that is based on stripes with moments perpendicular to the dimer bonds, which are along (110) and (-110). Magnetic fields applied along (110) or (-110) suppress the antiferromagnetic peaks from an individual sublattice, but leave the orthogonal sublattice unaffected, evidence for the Ising character of the Yb moments in Yb2Pt2Pb. Specific heat, magnetic susceptibility, and electrical resistivity measurements concur with neutron elastic scattering results that the longitudinal critical fluctuations are gapped with E about 0.07 meV.
The phase diagrams of the frustrated classical spin model with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction on the Shastry-Sutherland (S-S) lattice are studied by means of Monte Carlo simulation. For ferromagnetic next-nearest-neighboring (J2) interactions, the introduced exchange frustration enhances the effect of the DM interaction, which enlarges the magnetic field-range with the skyrmion lattice phase and increases the skyrmion density. For antiferromagnetic J2 interactions, the so-called 2q phase (two-sublattice skyrmion crystal) and the spin-flop phase are observed in the simulated phase diagram, and their stabilizations are closely dependent on the DM interaction and J2 interaction, respectively. The simulated results are qualitatively explained from the energy landscape, which provides useful information for understanding the intriguing phases in S-S magnets.
We studied the electronic structure of a Shastry-Sutherland lattice system, HoB4 employing high resolution photoemission spectroscopy and ab initio band structure calculations. The surface and bulk borons exhibit subtle differences, and loss of boron compared to the stoichiometric bulk. However, the surface and bulk conduction bands near Fermi level are found to be similar. Evolution of the electronic structure with temperature is found to be similar to that observed in a typical charge-disordered system. A sharp dip is observed at the Fermi level in the low temperature spectra revealing signature of antiferromagnetic gap. Asymmetric spectral weight transfer with temperature manifests particle-hole asymmetry that may be related to the exotic properties of these systems.