• Editors' Suggestion

Seeing beyond the light: Vison and photon electrodynamics in quantum spin ice

Attila Szabó and Claudio Castelnovo
Phys. Rev. B 100, 014417 – Published 15 July 2019

Abstract

Understanding the nature and behavior of excitations in quantum spin liquids, and in topological phases of matter in general, is of fundamental importance and has proven crucial for experimental detection and characterization of candidate materials. Current theoretical and numerical techniques, however, have limited capabilities, especially when it comes to studying gapped excitations. Here, we propose a semiclassical numerical method to study systems whose spin liquid behavior is underpinned by perturbative ring-exchange Hamiltonians. Our method can readily access both thermodynamic and spectral properties. We focus in particular on quantum spin ice and its photon and vison excitations. After benchmarking the method against existing results on photons, we use it to characterize visons and their thermodynamic behavior, which remained hitherto largely unexplored. We find that visons, in contrast to spinons in classical spin ice, form a weak electrolyte: Vison pairs are the dominant population at low temperatures. This is reflected in the behavior of thermodynamic quantities, such as pinch point motifs in the relevant correlators. Visons also appear to strongly hybridize with the photon background, a phenomenon that affects the way these quasiparticles may show up in inelastic response measurements. Our results demonstrate that the method, and generalizations thereof, can substantially help our understanding of quasiparticles and their interplay in quantum spin ice and other quantum spin liquids, quantum dimer models, and lattice gauge theories in general.

  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Figure
  • Figure
3 More
  • Received 18 March 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.014417

©2019 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Attila Szabó and Claudio Castelnovo

  • TCM Group, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, United Kingdom

Article Text (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand

References (Subscription Required)

Click to Expand
Issue

Vol. 100, Iss. 1 — 1 July 2019

Reuse & Permissions
Access Options
Author publication services for translation and copyediting assistance advertisement

Authorization Required


×
×

Images

×

Sign up to receive regular email alerts from Physical Review B

Log In

Cancel
×

Search


Article Lookup

Paste a citation or DOI

Enter a citation
×