arXiv:1812.05853 · Physical Review Letters
Higgs Mode of Planar Coupled Spin Ladders and its Observation in C9H18N2CuBr4
Tao Ying, Kai Phillip Schmidt, Stefan Weßel
Abstract
Polarized inelastic neutron scattering experiments recently identified the amplitude (Higgs) mode in C_{9}H_{18}N_{2}CuBr_{4}, a two-dimensional near-quantum-critical spin-1/2 two-leg ladder compound, which exhibits a weak easy-axis exchange anisotropy. Here, we theoretically examine the dynamic spin structure factor of such planar coupled spin-ladder systems using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. This allows us to provide a quantitative account of the experimental neutron scattering data within a consistent quantum spin model. Moreover, we trace the details of the continuous evolution of the amplitude mode from a two-particle bound state of coupled ladders in the classical Ising limit all the way to the quantum spin-1/2 Heisenberg limit with fully restored SU(2) symmetry, where it gets overdamped by the two-magnon continuum in neutron scattering.