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