Na$_2$IrO$_3$, a honeycomb 5$d^5$ oxide, has been recently identified as a potential realization of the Kitaev spin lattice. The basic feature of this spin model is that for each of the three metal-metal links emerging out of a metal site, the Kitaev
interaction connects only spin components perpendicular to the plaquette defined by the magnetic ions and two bridging ligands. The fact that reciprocally orthogonal spin components are coupled along the three different links leads to strong frustration effects and nontrivial physics. While the experiments indicate zigzag antiferromagnetic order in Na$_2$IrO$_3$, the signs and relative strengths of the Kitaev and Heisenberg interactions are still under debate. Herein we report results of ab initio many-body electronic structure calculations and establish that the nearest-neighbor exchange is strongly anisotropic with a dominant ferromagnetic Kitaev part, whereas the Heisenberg contribution is significantly weaker and antiferromagnetic. The calculations further reveal a strong sensitivity to tiny structural details such as the bond angles. In addition to the large spin-orbit interactions, this strong dependence on distortions of the Ir$_2$O$_2$ plaquettes singles out the honeycomb 5$d^5$ oxides as a new playground for the realization of unconventional magnetic ground states and excitations in extended systems.
Low frequency spin fluctuation dynamics in paramagnetic spinel LiV$_2$O$_4$, a rare 3$d$-electron heavy fermion system, is investigated. A parametrized self-consistent renormalization (SCR) theory of the dominant AFM spin fluctuations is developed an
d applied to describe temperature and pressure dependences of the low-$T$ nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate $1/T_1$ in this material. The experimental data for $1/T_1$ available down to $sim 1$K are well reproduced by the SCR theory, showing the development of AFM spin fluctuations as the paramagnetic metal approaches a magnetic instability under the applied pressure. The low-$T$ upturn of $1/T_1T$ detected below 0.6 K under the highest applied pressure of 4.74 GPa is explained as the nuclear spin relaxation effect due to the spin freezing of magnetic defects unavoidably present in the measured sample of LiV$_2$O$_4$.
A phenomenological description for the dynamical spin susceptibility $chi({bf q},omega;T)$ observed in inelastic neutron scattering measurements on powder samples of LiV$_2$O$_4$ is developed in terms of the parametrized self-consistent renormalizati
on (SCR) theory of spin fluctuations. Compatible with previous studies at $Tto 0$, a peculiar distribution in ${bf q}$-space of strongly enhanced and slow spin fluctuations at $q sim Q_c simeq$ 0.6 $AA^{-1}$ in LiV$_2$O$_4$ is involved to derive the mode-mode coupling term entering the basic equation of the SCR theory. The equation is solved self-consistently with the parameter values found from a fit of theoretical results to experimental data. For low temperatures, $T lesssim 30$K, where the SCR theory is more reliable, the observed temperature variations of the static spin susceptibility $chi(Q_c;T)$ and the relaxation rate $Gamma_Q(T)$ at $qsim Q_c$ are well reproduced by those suggested by the theory. For $Tgtrsim 30$K, the present SCR is capable in predicting only main trends in $T$-dependences of $chi(Q_c;T)$ and $Gamma_Q(T)$. The discussion is focused on a marked evolution (from $q sim Q_c$ at $Tto 0$ towards low $q$ values at higher temperatures) of the dominant low-$omega$ integrated neutron scattering intensity $I(q; T)$.
