The magnetic properties of SrCu 2 (BO 3 ) 2 are reviewed from a theoretical point of view. SrCu 2 (BO 3 ) 2 is a new two-dimensional spin gap system and its magnetic properties are well described by a spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model of the orthogonal dimer lattice. The model has a dimer singlet ground state whose exactness was proven by Shastry and Sutherland for a topologically equivalent model more than 20 years ago. The exactness of the ground state is maintained even if interlayer couplings are introduced for SrCu 2 (BO 3 ) 2 . In the two-dimensional model, quantum phase transitions take place between different ground states for which three phases are expected: a gapped dimer singlet state, a plaquette resonating valence bond state and a gapless magnetic ordered state. Analysis of the experimental data shows that the dimer singlet ground state is realized in SrCu 2 (BO 3 ) 2 . The orthogonality of the dimer bonds, which is the underlying symmetry of the exactness of the ground state, also leads to an unusual property of elementary excitations, namely the almost localized nature of the triplet excitations. Application of an external magnetic field changes the density of the triplet excitations. In general, there is competition between kinetic energies and interaction energies between triplets. The almost localized nature of the triplets makes it easy to form regular lattices. In fact, at certain densities, where the commensurability energy is significant, the triplet excitations form superstructures and plateaux appear at 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 and 1/8 in the magnetization curve. In high-magnetic-field experiments, magnetic plateaux at magnetizations of 1/3, 1/4 and 1/8 have been observed. Translational symmetry of the lattice is spontaneously broken at the plateaux, except for the 1/2 plateau. The 1/3 and 1/4 plateaux are expected to have magnetic superstructures of stripe form while the 1/2 plateau has a square unit cell and the 1/8 plateau a rhomboid cell. Especially at the 1/8 plateau, nuclear magnetic resonance experiments indicate the presence of at least 11 distinct Cu sites with different spin polarizations, which is the first evidence of breaking of the translational symmetry at the plateau phase. The spin texture calculated on the basis of a Heisenberg model with adiabatic spin–phonon coupling is consistent with the experimental results.
SrCu 2( BO 3)2 is a new two-dimensional spin gap system and the magnetic behaviour of this compound is explained well by the two-dimensional orthogonal dimer Heisenberg model. Recently several excitations have been observed by inelastic neutron scattering and other experiments. We study features of these excitations by Lanczos method and perturbation technique. A triplet excitation has an almost localised nature. This localised character is observed as an almost flat band in neutron scattering. On the other hand, bound states of two triplet excitations, which have dispersive character, are stable in contrast to ordinary magnetic systems. We calculate the dynamic structure factor by a Lanczos method in finite systems and compare our results with experiments.
We study a spin-1/2 model with triangular
XXZ clusters on the orthogonal-dimer chain in the presence of an external magnetic field. First, we discuss the case where the triangular clusters are coupled via intermediate ``classical'' Ising spins. Diagonalization of the triangular
XXZ clusters yields the exact ground states; finite-temperature properties are computed exactly by an additional transfer-matrix step. A detailed analysis reveals a large variety of ground states at magnetization
M equal to fractions 0,
1/4, and
1/2 of the saturation magnetization
M=1. Some of these ground states break translational symmetry spontaneously and give rise to doubling of the unit cell. In a second part, we present complementary numerical data for the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the orthogonal-dimer chain. We analyze several examples of
T=0 magnetization curves, entropy as a function of temperature
T and magnetic field, and the associated magnetic cooling rate. Comparison of the two models shows that in certain situations the simplified exactly solvable model yields a qualitatively or sometimes even quantitatively accurate description of the more challenging quantum model, including a case which may be relevant to experimental observations of an enhanced magnetocaloric effect in the two-dimensional compound SrCu
2(BO
3)
2.