Abstract
We present thermodynamic and neutron-scattering measurements on the quantum spin ice candidate Nd2Zr2O7. The parametrization of the anisotropic exchange Hamiltonian is refined based on high-energy-resolution inelastic neutron-scattering data together with thermodynamic data using linear spin-wave theory and numerical linked-cluster expansion. Magnetic phase diagrams are calculated using classical Monte Carlo simulations with fields along [100], [110], and [111] crystallographic directions which agree qualitatively with the experiment. Large hysteresis and irreversibility for [111] is reproduced and the microscopic mechanism is revealed by mean-field calculations to be the existence of metastable states and domain inversion. Our results shed light on the explanations of the recently observed dynamical kagome ice in Nd2Zr2O7 in [111] fields.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 144420 |
| Journal | Physical Review B |
| Volume | 99 |
| Issue number | 14 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 23 2019 |
Funding
We thank Y.-P. Huang, M. Hermele, S. T. Bramwell, and A. T. Boothroyd for helpful discussions on the related theory. We acknowledge Helmholtz Gemeinschaft for funding via the Helmholtz Virtual Institute (Project No. VH-VI-521). This research used resources at the Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Experiments at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source were supported by a beam-time allocation RB1810504 from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.92924095).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Helmholtz Virtual Institute | RB1810504 |
| Science and Technology Facilities Council | |
| Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft |