Signatures of a magnetic field-induced unconventional nematic liquid in the frustrated and anisotropic spin-chain cuprate LiCuSbO4
Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review
Contributors
Abstract
Modern theories of quantum magnetism predict exotic multipolar states in weakly interacting strongly frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg chains with ferromagnetic nearest neighbor (NN) inchain exchange in high magnetic fields. Experimentally these states remained elusive so far. Here we report strong indications of a magnetic field-induced nematic liquid arising above a field of ~13 T in the edge-sharing chain cuprate LiSbCuO4 = LiCuSbO4. This interpretation is based on the observation of a field induced spin-gap in the measurements of the 7Li NMR spin relaxation rate T 1 -1 as well as a contrasting field-dependent power-law behavior of T 1 -1 vs. T and is further supported by static magnetization and ESR data. An underlying theoretical microscopic approach favoring a nematic scenario is based essentially on the NN XYZ exchange anisotropy within a model for frustrated spin-1/2 chains and is investigated by the DMRG technique. The employed exchange parameters are justified qualitatively by electronic structure calculations for LiCuSbO4.
Details
Original language | English |
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Article number | 6720 |
Journal | Scientific reports |
Volume | 7 |
Issue number | 1 |
Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2017 |
Peer-reviewed | Yes |
External IDs
PubMed | 28751668 |
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