By using polarized inelastic neutron scattering measurements, we show that the spin-lattice quantum entanglement in mutliferroics results in hybrid elementary excitations, involving spin and lattice degrees of freedom. These excitations can be considered as multiferroic Godstone modes. We argue that the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction could be at the origin of this hybridization.
Using a phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory for the magnetic conical cycloid state of a multiferroic, which has been recently reported in the cubic spinel CoCr$_{2}$O$_{4}$, we discuss its low-energy fluctuation spectrum. We identify the Goldstone modes of the conical cycloidal order, and deduce their dispersion relations whose signature anisotropy in momentum space reflects the symmetries broken by the ordered state. We discuss the soft polarization fluctuations, the `electromagnons, associated with these magnetic modes and make several experimental predictions which can be tested in neutron scattering and optical experiments.
Quantum materials with strong transport responses to disparate physical quantities are of great fundamental significance and may hold technological potentials. The interplay between interactions and topology drive such responses through the effects of spontaneous symmetry breaking and the associated domain configurations on quantum transport. Here we provide a comprehensive description of the magnetism of Mn3Ge, an antiferromagnetic kagomebased semimetal with room temperature transport anomalies associated with topologically protected Weyl nodes. Using polarized neutron diffraction, we show the all-important magnetic structure is anti-chiral and coplanar carrying the symmetry of a ferromagnet without appreciable magnetization. We probe and classify the long wavelength excitations that determine its macroscopic responses including a set of collective magneto-elastic modes. We develop a phenomenological spin Hamiltonian with exchange, Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya, and crystal field interactions to describe its collective magnetism. The itinerant character of the magnetism that drives quantum transport is apparent in spin wave damping and extended magnetic interactions. Our work provides the scientific basis for manipulation of the chiral antiferromagnetic texture of Mn3Ge to control its topological quantum transport.
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 report on TmMnO3 far infrared emissivity and reflectivity spectra from 1910 K to 4 K. At the highest temperature the number of infrared bands is lower than that predicted for centrosymmetric P63/mmc (D6h4) (Z=2) space group due high temperature anharmonicity and possible defect induced bitetrahedra misalignments. On cooling, at ~1600 K TmMnO3 goes from non-polar to an antiferroelectric-ferroelectric polar phase reaching the ferroelectric onset at the ~700 K. The 300 K reflectivity is fitted using 19 oscillators and this number of phonons is maintained down to 4 K. A weak phonon anomaly in the band profile at 217 cm-1 (4 K) suggests subtle Rare Earth magnetoelectric couplings at ~TN and below. A low energy collective excitation is identified as a THz instability associated with room temperature eg electrons in a d-orbital fluctuating environment. It condenses into two modes that emerge pinned to the E-type antiferromagmetic order hardening simultaneously down to 4 K. They obey power laws with TN as the critical temperature and match known zone center magnons. The one peaking at 26 cm-1, with critical exponent b{eta}=0.42 as for antiferromagnetic order in a hexagonal lattice, is dependent on the Rare Earth. The band at ~50 cm-1, with b{eta}=0.25, splits at ~TN into two peaks. The weaker band of the two is assimilated to the upper branch of gap opening in the transverse acoustical (TA) phonon branch crossing the magnetic dispersion found in YMnO3. (Petit et al, 2007 PRL 99, 266604). The stronger second at ~36 cm-1 corresponds to the lower branch of the TA gap. We assign both excitations as zone center magnetoelectric hybrid quasiparticles concluding that in NdMnO3 perovskite the equivalent picture corresponds to an instability which may be driven by an external field to transform NdMnO3 into a multiferroic compound by perturbation enhancing the TA phonon-magnetic correlation.
The coexisting magnetic and ferroelectric orders in multiferroic materials give rise to a handful of novel magnetoelectric phenomena, such as the absorption difference for the opposite propagation directions of light called the non-reciprocal directional dichroism (NDD). Usually these effects are restricted to low temperature, where the multiferroic phase develops. In this paper we report the observation of NDD in the paramagnetic phase of Sr2CoSi2O7 up to temperatures more than ten times higher than its Neel temperature (7 K) and in fields up to 30 T. The magnetically induced polarization and NDD in the disordered paramagnetic phase is readily explained by the single-ion spin-dependent hybridization mechanism, which does not necessitate correlation effects between magnetic ions. The Sr2CoSi2O7 provides an ideal system for a theoretical case study, demonstrating the concept of magnetoelectric spin excitations in a paramagnet via analytical as well as numerical approaches. We applied exact diagonalization of a spin cluster to map out the temperature and field dependence of the spin excitations, as well as symmetry arguments of the single ion and lattice problem to get the spectrum and selection rules.