Abstract
Based on high-field nuclear magnetic resonance experiments and accompanying numerical calculations, it is argued that in the frustrated ladder compound a field-induced soliton lattice develops above a critical field of T. Solitons result from the fractionalization of the , bosonlike triplet excitations, which in other quantum antiferromagnets are commonly known to experience Bose-Einstein condensation or to crystallize in a superstructure. Unlike in spin-Peierls systems, these field-induced quantum domain walls do not arise from a state with broken translational symmetry and are triggered exclusively by magnetic frustration. Our model predicts yet another second-order phase transition at , driven by soliton-soliton interactions, most likely corresponding to the one observed in recent magnetocaloric and other bulk measurements.
- Received 27 November 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.187201
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