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Physical Review B

Spinon, soliton, and breather in the spin- 12 antiferromagnetic chain compound KCuGaF6

Izumi Umegaki, Hidekazu Tanaka, Nobuyuki Kurita, Toshio Ono, M. Laver, Ch. Niedermayer, Christian Rüegg, Seiko Ohira‐Kawamura, Kenji Nakajima, Kazuhisa Kakurai

Published Nov 9, 2015• 22 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Elementary excitations of the $S=\frac{1}{2}$ one-dimensional antiferromagnet ${\mathrm{KCuGaF}}_{6}$ were investigated by inelastic neutron scattering in zero and finite magnetic fields perpendicular to the $(1,1,0)$ plane combined with specific heat measurements. ${\mathrm{KCuGaF}}_{6}$ exhibits no long-range magnetic ordering down to 50 mK despite the large exchange interaction $J/{k}_{\mathrm{B}}=103$ K. At zero magnetic field, well-defined spinon excitations were observed. The energy of the des Cloizeaux and Pearson [J. des Cloizeaux and J. J. Pearson, Phys. Rev. 128, 2131 (1962)] mode of the spinon excitations is somewhat larger than that calculated with the above exchange constant. This discrepancy is mostly ascribed to the effective $XY$ anisotropy arising from the large Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya [T. Moriya, Phys. Rev. 120, 91 (1960)] interaction with an alternating $\mathbit{D}$ vector. ${\mathrm{KCuGaF}}_{6}$ in a magnetic field is represented by the quantum sine-Gordon model, for which low-energy elementary excitations are composed of solitons and antisolitons and their bound states called breathers. Unlike the theoretical prediction, it was found that the energy of a soliton is smaller than that of the first breather, although the energy of the first breather coincides with that observed in a previous electron spin resonance measurement.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.92.174412

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Spinon, soliton and breather in the spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic chain KCuGaF6_66​
Elementary excitations of the S=1/2 one-dimensional antiferromagnet KCuGaF_6 were investigated by inelastic neutron scattering in zero and finite magnetic fields perpendicular to the (1, 1, 0) plane combined with specific heat measurements. KCuGaF6_66​ exhibits no long-range magnetic ordering down to 50 mK despite the large exchange interaction J/k_B=103 K. At zero magnetic field, well-defined spinon excitations were observed. The energy of the des Cloizeaux and Pearson mode of the spinon excitations is somewhat larger than that calculated with the above exchange constant. This discrepancy is mostly ascribed to the effective XY anisotropy arising from the large Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction with an alternating D vector. KCuGaF_6 in a magnetic field is represented by the quantum sine-Gordon model, for which low-energy elementary excitations are composed of solitons, antisolitons and their bound states called breathers. Unlike the theoretical prediction, it was found that the energy of a soliton is smaller than that of the first breather, although the energy of the first breather coincides with that observed in a previous ESR measurement.
Inelastic neutron scattering was used to measure the magnetic field dependence of spin excitations in the antiferromagnetic S=1/2S=1/2S=1/2 chain ${\mathrm{C}\mathrm{u}\mathrm{C}\mathrm{l}}_{2}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}2(\mathrm{\text{dimethylsulfoxide}})$ in the presence of uniform and staggered fields. Dispersive bound states emerge from a zero-field two-spinon continuum with different finite energy minima at wave numbers $q=\ensuremath{\pi}$ and ${q}_{i}\ensuremath{\approx}\ensuremath{\pi}(1\ensuremath{-}2\ensuremath{\langle}{S}_{z}\ensuremath{\rangle})$. The ratios of the field dependent excitation energies are in excellent agreement with predictions for breather and soliton solutions to the quantum sine-Gordon model, the proposed low-energy theory for S=1/2S=1/2S=1/2 chains in a staggered field. The data are also consistent with the predicted soliton and n=1,2n=1,2n=1,2 breather polarizations and scattering cross sections.
Abstract A spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain is one of the most important paradigmatic models in quantum magnetism. Its ground state is a spin singlet, while the excitation spectrum is formed by gapless fractional excitations, spinons. The presence of alternating g-tensors and/or the staggered Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction results in opening the energy gap Δ∝H2/3\varDelta \propto H^{2/3}Δ∝H2/3 Δ ∝ H 2 / 3 , once the magnetic field H is applied. A fairly good understanding of this phenomenon was achieved in the framework of the sine-Gordon quantum-field theory, taking into account the effective transverse staggered field induced by the applied uniform field. The theory predicts solitons and antisolitons as elementary excitations, as well as their bound states, breathers. Here, I review recent high-field electron spin resonance spectroscopy studies of such systems, focusing on peculiarities of their spin dynamics in the sine-Gordon regime and beyond.
We investigated the thermodynamic properties of the spin-1/2 one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet KCuGaF6{}_{6}6​ by measuring the specific heat in magnetic fields. When this compound is subjected to a uniform magnetic field $\mathbit{H}$, a transverse staggered magnetic field $\mathbit{h}$ is induced in this compound owing to the staggered component of the $\mathbit{g}$ tensor and the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction with an alternating $\mathbit{D}$ vector. Consequently, the quantum sine-Gordon (SG) model is an effective model of this compound in a uniform magnetic field. In three different field directions, we observed a magnetic-field-induced gap, which increases with HHH. We analyzed experimental results using specific heat theory based on quantum SG theory. The thermodynamic property for $H\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\parallel}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}c$ is very well described in terms of the elementary excitations characteristic of the quantum SG model, while for the other field directions significant contributions from other excitation modes beyond the framework of the quantum SG model were observed. For $H\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\parallel}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}b$, a quantum phase transition between gapless and gapped ground states was observed.
Many phenomena in magnetism can be described using classical models, yet magnetism is a quantum mechanical effect. In addition to thermal fluctuations, quantum fluctuations arise due to the quantum uncertainty of the ground state. These fluctuations are enhanced by low dimensionality and low spin. Spin chains show interesting excitations associated with quasiparticles. Model materials for spin chains can be realized in compounds where the interchain interactions are weak enough. This thesis presents neutron scattering studies of two model materials for spin chains with different spin symmetry. The spin2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain CuSO4*5D2O has a main exchange of J ∼ 3 K, which permits to study its excitation spectrum up to temperatures of ten times the exchange. The spin2 Heisenberg magnet has been studied widely both theoretically and experimentally. The excitation spectrum of the spin2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet consists of quasiparticles called spinons, and calculations for it exist for T = 0 and as a function of temperature. A quantitative comparison between experimental data and theoretical models across a range of temperatures is presented. The excitation spectrum of CuSO4*5D2O is excellently described by the excitation spectrum of a spin2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain at finite temperatures. Energy-temperature scaling is observed at temperatures up to 2J . For these temperatures the Luttinger liquid description of the spin2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain is valid. A spinon continuum is confirmed at all measured temperatures. Therefore, even at ten times the main exchange (T ≈ 10 J), CuSO4*5D2O shows the behavior of a quantum magnet, and not of a classical system at infinite temperatures, for which one would expect single spin flips. The Ising chain is one of the most studied models in magnetism, one model compound for it is RbCoCl3. Optical spectroscopy measurements suggest a lower gap than for similar compounds, which makes it better suited for high resolution neutron spectroscopy. Magnetic correlations along the chains arise in RbCoCl3 below 80 K. A gapped continuum is observed, which arises from isolated antiferromagnetic Ising chains. Below the first magnetic ordering temperature TN1 ≈ 28 K bound states are observed, which arise due to correlations which form between the chains. Strong diffuse scattering leads to the conclusion that disorder is still present. At the second magnetic ordering transition, at TN2 ≈ 14 K, the bound states split as the correlations between the chains change. Fits indicate that the correlations change continuously as a function of temperature. Above TN2 the excitation spectrum of RbCoCl3 can be described by a spin1 2 Ising chain with an XY-component which is treated as a perturbation. Below TN2 the main features are reproduced correctly, but deviations from the details indicate that additional terms in the Hamiltonian may be necessary. This thesis was carried out at the Institut Laue-Langevin, the Laboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging at the Paul Scherrer Institute and ETH Zurich.
Inelastic neutron scattering experiments on the S = 1 quasi-one-dimensional bond-alternating antiferromagnet Ni(C9D24N4)(NO2)ClO4 have been performed under magnetic fields below and above a critical field Hc at which the energy gap closes. Normal field dependence of Zeeman splitting of the excited triplet modes below Hc has been observed, but the highest mode is unusually small and smears out with increasing field. This can be explained by an interaction with a low-lying two magnon continuum at q(parallel) = pi that is present in dimerized chains but absent in uniform ones. Above Hc, we find only one excited mode, in stark contrast with three massive excitations previously observed in the structurally similar Haldane-gap material NDMAP [A. Zheludev, Phys. Rev. B 68, 134438 (2003)].