Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Classical spin liquids are paramagnetic phases that feature nontrivial patterns of spin correlations within their ground-state manifold whose degeneracy scales with system size. Often they harbor fractionalized excitations, and their low-energy fluctuations are described by emergent gauge theories. In this work, we discuss a model composed of chiral three-body spin interactions on the pyrochlore lattice that realizes a novel classical chiral spin liquid whose excitations are fractonalized while also displaying a fracton-like behavior. We demonstrate that the ground-state manifold of this spin liquid is given by a subset of the so-called color-ice states. We show that the low-energy states are captured by an effective gauge theory which possesses a divergence-free condition and an additional chiral term that constrains the total flux of the fields through a single tetrahedron. The divergence-free constraint on the gauge fields results in two-fold pinch points in the spin structure factor and the identification of bionic charges as excitations of the system.
Source: Nature Communications
Language: English
Subfield: Condensed Matter Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $6,790
Awards: G1352909968, G1750626284, G2152757567, G2492005311, G2595738051, G476975023, EXC 2147: Komplexität und Topologie in Quantenmaterialien (CT.QMAT), Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Programs on Critical Problems in Physics, Astrophysics and Biophysics at the Aspen Center for Physics, SFB 1143: Korrelierter Magnetismus: Von Frustration zu Topologie, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, G936330020
OpenAlex ID: W4404641554