Abstract
Yb2Ti2O7 is a celebrated example of a pyrochlore magnet with highly frustrated, anisotropic exchange interactions. To date, attention has largely focused on its unusual, static properties, many of which can be understood as coming from the competition between different types of magnetic order. Here we use inelastic neutron scattering with exceptionally high energy resolution to explore the dynamical properties of Yb2Ti2O7. We find that spin correlations exhibit dynamical scaling, analogous to behavior found near to a quantum critical point. We show that the observed scaling collapse can be explained within a phenomenological theory of multiple-phase competition, and confirm that a scaling collapse is also seen in semiclassical simulations of a microscopic model of Yb2Ti2O7. These results suggest that dynamical scaling may be general to systems with competing ground states.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 217202 |
Journal | Physical Review Letters |
Volume | 129 |
Issue number | 21 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 18 2022 |
Funding
This research used resources at the Spallation Neutron Source, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A. S. acknowledges helpful discussions with D. A. Tennant. O. B. acknowledges useful discussions with Benedikt Placke and Shu Zhang. L. D. C. J. acknowledges financial support from CNRS (PICS No. 228338) and from the “Agence Nationale de la Recherche” under Grant No. ANR-18-CE30-0011-01. Single crystal development was supported as part of the Institute for Quantum Matter, an Energy Frontier Research Center, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Award No. DE-SC0019331. This work was supported by the Theory of Quantum Matter Unit of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST).