Disorder-Induced Quantum Spin Liquid in Spin Ice Pyrochlores
Name
PhysRevLett.118.087203.pdf
Size
173.56 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
164536468f060b9b3ae7e9181553bb58
Author(s)
Balents, Leon
Savary, Lucile
Date Issued
February 2017
Journal
Physical Review Letters
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Savary, Lucile, and Leon Balents. “Disorder-Induced Quantum Spin Liquid in Spin Ice Pyrochlores.” Physical Review Letters 118.8 (2017): n. pag. © 2017 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We propose that in a certain class of magnetic materials, known as non-Kramers “spin ice,” disorder induces quantum entanglement. Instead of driving glassy behavior, disorder provokes quantum superpositions of spins throughout the system and engenders an associated emergent gauge structure and set of fractional excitations. More precisely, disorder transforms a classical phase governed by a large entropy, classical spin ice, into a quantum spin liquid governed by entanglement. As the degree of disorder is increased, the system transitions between (i) a “regular” Coulombic spin liquid, (ii) a phase known as “Mott glass,” which contains rare gapless regions in real space, but whose behavior on long length scales is only modified quantitatively, and (iii) a true glassy phase for random distributions with large width or large mean amplitude.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
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.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.087203
