Tutorial on frustrated magnetism
Roderich Moessner CNRS and ENS Paris
Lorentz Center Leiden 9 August 2006
Overview
Frustrated magnets
What are they? Why study them?
Classical frustration degeneracy and instability Order by disorder Quantum frustration
weak quantum uctuation strong quantum uctuations, and the S = 1/2 kagome magnet magnetoelastics and heavy Fermions
The spinels: experimental model systems
Outlook
Why study frustrated magnets
Materials physics
because they exist (and may be useful) strong correlations/uctuations coupled degrees of freedom interesting (quantum) phases, including liquids Betouras,
Shtengel
Conceptually important model systems often tractable
unconventional phase transitions Krger, Vishwanath
History
First system: ice
Pauling, JACS 1935 Wannier+Houtappel;
1950s: triangular Ising magnet cooperative paramagnets
pyrochlore
Ising magnet (spin ice) Anderson
Villain 1977
Most complete bibliography (by Oleg Tchernyshyov) Reviews:
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/olegt/pyrochlore.html
Misguich+Lhuillier cond-mat; H.T. Diep book; R.M.+Ramirez Phys. Today
Frustration leads to (classical) degeneracy
Consider Ising spins i = 1 with antiferromagnetic J > 0: H=J i j
ij
Not all terms in H can simultaneously be minimised But we can rewrite H:
J H= 2
i
i=1
+ const
4 2
Number of ground states: Ngs =
= 6 for one tetrahedron
Degeneracy is hallmark of frustration
Frustration degeneracy zero-point entropy
ground-state condition: or for each triangle ippable spins experience vanishing exchange eld
nite entropy in ground state: S = 0.323kB
What happens at low T ?
Frustration degeneracy zero-point entropy
ground-state condition: or for each triangle ippable spins experience vanishing exchange eld
nite entropy in ground state: S = 0.323kB
lower bound on entropy S (kB /3) ln 2
Important: local d.o.f.
What happens at low T ?
Why degenerate systems are special
d.o.s unfrustrated magnet
N2 N N 1 E E
d.o.s frustrated magnet
ln ~N ~N ~N ~N
Ground states can exhibit subtle correlations (seen at low T ) Degenerate ground states provide no energy scale Very rich behaviour (theory+experiment) but also hard Cf. quantum Hall physics (degenerate Landau levels)
all perturbations are strong many instabilities
The cooperative paramagnetic regime Villain
Denition: regime at low
temperature T J which is continuously connected to high-temperature paragmagnetic phase
Susceptibility ngerprint of frustration
1
non-generic cooperative paramagnet
Properties: correlations
short-ranged in space and time (?)
CW
paramagnet
Experiments:
phase transitions occur much below the Curie-Weiss temperature: TF CW Ramirez
TF
CW
Constraint counting as a measure of frustration
Units of q Heisenberg spins Si )2
i=1
H=J
ij
Si Sj (J/2)(
q=2 q=3 q=4
gives ground state degeneracy: L i Si to be minimised. degeneracy grows with q Constraint counting: D = F K
ground-state degeneracy D total d.o.f. F ground-state constraint K
Pyrochlore antiferromagnets are particularly frustrated
Highly frustrated (corner-sharing) lattices
Thermodynamics: the single-unit approximation
1 (T ) and E(T ) for Heisenberg pyrochlore
susceptibility and energy per spin (undiluted pyrochlore)
Natural d.o.f.:
35 30 25
/J
theory Monte Carlo CurieWeiss
single tetrahedron spin L = i Si , with L T and L 2 at low (high) T .
20 15 10 5 0
E/J
Solve single unit
1
(single tetrahedron) exactly despite neglect of all correlations beyond nearest neighbour.
Works rather well,
0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4
T/J
10
Order by disorder Villain, Shender
basic idea: uctuations lift degeneracy thermal obdo: F = U T S
tions continuous spins: gapless excitations possible some soft: E 4
ground states y
Ising spins: no low-energy uctua-
S1 S4
S2 S3
ordered state
x
Where is weight concentrated?
phase space
Quantum frustration
used to describe many (very different) situations simplest starting point
think of transverse eld Ising model
Hilbert space spanned by class. (discrete) ground states quantum dynamics: as local as possible quantum obdo
maximally ippable (triangle) recent work on supersolids 3d XY transition
disorder by disorder
(kagome)
The holy grail: S = 1/2 kagome
kagome lattice has played important role historically
rst experimental on SCGO (with kagome motif) Obradors kagome S = 1/2 remains a mystery
apparently no order at all spin gap small singlet gap (if any) many singlet states with
E<
even more theories
The simple spinel oxides AB2 O4 (after Takagi)
d0.5 LiTi2 O4 BCS SC d1 MgTi2 O4 valence bond solid d1.5 LiV2 O4 heavy Fermion d2 {Zn,Mg,Cd}V2 O4 spin+orbital ordering d2.5 AlV2 O4 charge-ordered d3 {Zn,Mg,Cd}Cr2 O4 spin+structural phase transition d3.5 LiMn2 O4 d4 ZnMn2 O4
ions on B-sublattice form pyrochlore lattice properties tunable by varying ions on A, B sublattices many more compounds exist LiV2 O4 : non-integer nominal valence; orbital d.o.f.; spin
many sources of entropy at low T whence heavy Fermion behaviour?
Supplementary (lattice) d.o.f. in the Cr spinels
nominal valence of Cr: d3 (half-lled t2g orbitals) Q: Interplay of elastic degrees of freedom and frustration? magnetoelatic Hamiltonian Htot = Hm + Hme + He
isotropic S = 3/2 on pyrochlore lattice
magnetic exchange Hm = J
ij
magnetoelastic coupling (xa ... displacements) Hme = dJij (Si Sj ) xa dxa kab xa xb (kab ... elastic
Si Sj
aij
elastic energy He = constants)
ab
Unfrustrated magnetoelastics: chain in d = 1
Si Sj = cnn is uniform for nearest neighbours
Simplest case: dJij /dxa = J a,i :
Hm minimised by extremal cnn = Si Sj = S 2
Hme + He = a J cnn xa + kx2 minimised by xa = J cnn /(2k) a = Emin = (J cnn )2 /(4k) grows with |cnn |
global minimum of Htot : only uniform contraction! quantum S = 1/2 chain:
Si Sj cannot independently extremised modulated Si Sj modulated distortion dimerisation
Frustrated magnetoelastics in a nutshell
Frustration degeneracy of ground states
Degenerate states not symmetry equivalent Distortions (strengthen)weaken (un)frustrated bonds Energy balance: distortions generally present at low T
Si Sj can be non-uniform
magnetic energy: linear gain (Si Sj ) x elastic energy: quadratic cost kx2
favours collinear states (not always seen!)
Basically: x Si Sj eff. biquadratic exchange (Si Sj )2
Collinear order by distortion in CdCr2 O4
Ueda et al.
eff. biquadratic exchange leads to plateau formation details to be worked out
at plateau centre, collinear among ground states
Emergent gauge structure: from spins to uxes
Think of spins as living on links of dual lattice Easiest for Ising spins = 1 unit of ux Experimental realisation: spin ice compounds
Local constraint conservation law
Dene ux vector eld on links of the
ice lattice: Bi
Local constraint (ice rules) becomes
conservation law (as in Kirchoffs laws) gauge theory B = 0 = B = A
Ice congurations differ by
rearranging protons on a loop
Amounts to reversing closed loop of
ux B Smallest loop: hexagon (six links)
Long-wavelength analysis: coarse-graining
Coarse-grain B B with B = 0
Flippable loops have zero average ux:
Ansatz: upon coarse-graining, obtain energy
low average ux many microstates
functional of entropic origin: .B,0
Z=
B
( B) exp[ K B2 ] DB 2
Articial magnetostatics! Resulting correlators are transverse and
algebraic (but not critical!): e.g.
2 Bz (q)Bz (q) q /q 2 (3 cos2 1)/r3 .
Bow-ties in the structure factor of ice
proton distribution in water ice, Ic
Li et al.
Quantum ice: articial electrodynamics
Hilbert space: (classical) ice congurations Add coherent quantum dynamics for hexagonal loop:
Effective long-wavelength theory Hq =
HRK = t |
| + h.c. + v |
E2 + c2 B2
| +
Maxwell
This describes the Coulomb phase of a U (1) gauge theory:
deconnement microscopic model! Articial electrodynamics with ice as ether Wens noodle soup
gapless photons, speed of light c2 v t
confining phases MF 0 TF
Coulomb
staggered 1 RK
v/t
Summary
frustration degeneracy strong uctuations
new phases/phase transitions/dynamics
simple model systems many realisations
materials physics nanotechnology cold atoms
