Spinon confinement and a sharp longitudinal mode in Yb2Pt2Pb in magnetic fields

Gannon, W. J.1,8; Zaliznyak, I. A.2; Wu, L. S.3,9; Feiguin, A. E.2,4; Tsvelik, A. M.; Demmel, F.5; Qiu, Y.6; Copley, J. R. D.6; Kim, M. S.7; Aronson, M. C.1,8

2019-03-08

10.1038/s41467-019-08715-y

Nature Communications   影响因子和分区

2041-1723

The fundamental excitations in an antiferromagnetic chain of spins-1/2 are spinons, de-confined fractional quasiparticles that when combined in pairs, form a triplet excitation continuum. In an Ising-like spin chain the continuum is gapped and the ground state is Neel ordered. Here, we report high resolution neutron scattering experiments, which reveal how a magnetic field closes this gap and drives the spin chains in Yb2Pt2Pb to a critical, disordered Luttinger-liquid state. In Yb2Pt2Pb the effective spins-1/2 describe the dynamics of large, Ising-like Yb magnetic moments, ensuring that the measured excitations are exclusively longitudinal, which we find to be well described by time-dependent density matrix renormalization group calculations. The inter-chain coupling leads to the confinement of spinons, a condensed matter analog of quark confinement in quantum chromodynamics. Insensitive to transverse fluctuations, our measurements show how a gapless, dispersive longitudinal mode arises from confinement and evolves with magnetic order.

SCI

英语

NI期刊

其他

[NSF-DMR-1310008]

Science & Technology - Other Topics

Multidisciplinary Sciences

WOS:000460631100008

NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

Web of Science

1.Texas A&M Univ, Dept Phys & Astron, College Stn, TX 77843 USA
2.Brookhaven Natl Lab, Condensed Matter Phys & Mat Sci Div, Upton, NY 11973 USA
3.Oak Ridge Natl Lab, Quantum Condensed Matter Div, Oak Ridge, TN 37830 USA
4.Northeastern Univ, Dept Phys, Boston, MA 02115 USA
5.Rutherford Appleton Lab, ISIS Facil, Didcot OX11 0QZ, Oxon, England
6.NIST, Ctr Neutron Res, Gaithersburg, MD 20899 USA
7.SUNY Stony Brook, Dept Phys & Astron, Stony Brook, NY 11794 USA
8.Univ British Columbia, Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Inst, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada
9.South Univ Sci & Technol China, Dept Phys, Shenzhen 518055, Peoples R China

Gannon, W. J.,Zaliznyak, I. A.,Wu, L. S.,et al. Spinon confinement and a sharp longitudinal mode in Yb2Pt2Pb in magnetic fields[J]. Nature Communications,2019,10.

Gannon, W. J..,Zaliznyak, I. A..,Wu, L. S..,Feiguin, A. E..,Tsvelik, A. M..,...&Aronson, M. C..(2019).Spinon confinement and a sharp longitudinal mode in Yb2Pt2Pb in magnetic fields.Nature Communications,10.

Gannon, W. J.,et al."Spinon confinement and a sharp longitudinal mode in Yb2Pt2Pb in magnetic fields".Nature Communications 10(2019).