Mechanisms for sub-gap optical conductivity in Herbertsmithite
Name
Potter-2013-Mechanisms for sub-gap optical.pdf
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Author(s)
Potter, Andrew C.
Lee, Patrick A.
Todadri, Senthil
Date Issued
June 2013
Journal
Physical Review B
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Potter, Andrew C., T. Senthil, and Patrick A. Lee. “Mechanisms for Sub-Gap Optical Conductivity in Herbertsmithite.” Phys. Rev. B 87, no. 24 (June 2013). © 2013 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Recent terahertz conductivity measurements observed low-power-law frequency dependence of optical conduction within the Mott gap of the kagome lattice spin-liquid candidate Herbertsmithite. We investigate mechanisms for this observed sub-gap conductivity for two possible scenarios in which the ground state is described by (1) a U(1) Dirac spin liquid with emergent fermionic spinons or (2) a nearly critical Z[subscript 2] spin liquid in the vicinity of a continuous quantum phase transition to magnetic order. We identify new mechanisms for optical absorption via magnetoelastic effects and spin-orbit coupling. In addition, for the Dirac spin liquid scenario, we establish an explicit microscopic origin for previously proposed absorption mechanisms based on slave-particle effective field theory descriptions.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.87.245106
