Abstract
Spin-orbit Mott insulators composed of transition metal ions may host excitonic magnetism due to the condensation of spin-orbital triplons. Prior experiments suggest that the antiferromagnet embodies this notion, but a nonmagnetic state as a basis of the excitonic picture remains to be confirmed. We use Ru -edge resonant inelastic x-ray scattering to reveal archetypal multiplets with a ground state in the cubic compound , which are well described within the -coupling scheme. This result highlights the critical role of unquenched orbital moments in -electron compounds and calls for investigations of quantum criticality and excitonic magnetism on various crystal lattices.
- Received 10 July 2021
- Accepted 18 October 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.227201
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.
Published by the American Physical Society