Abstract
Bond-dependent magnetic interactions can generate exotic phases such as Kitaev spin-liquid states. Experimentally determining the values of bond-dependent interactions is a challenging but crucial problem. Here, I show that each symmetry-allowed nearest-neighbor interaction on triangular and honeycomb lattices has a distinct signature in paramagnetic neutron-diffraction data, and that such data contain sufficient information to determine the spin Hamiltonian unambiguously via unconstrained fits. Moreover, I show that bond-dependent interactions can often be extracted from powder-averaged data. These results facilitate experimental determination of spin Hamiltonians for materials that do not show conventional magnetic ordering.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 247202 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 125 |
| Issue number | 24 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 7 2020 |
Funding
I am grateful to Xiaojian Bai (ORNL), Andrew Christianson (ORNL), Seung-Hwan Do (ORNL), Mechthild Enderle (ILL), Andrew Goodwin (Oxford), Pontus Laurell (ORNL), Martin Mourigal (Georgia Tech), Kate Ross (Colorado State), Allen Scheie (ORNL), Ross Stewart (ISIS), and Alan Tennant (ORNL) for valuable discussions. I also thank the authors of Ref. for making available their published data. This work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy (project design, calculations, and manuscript writing), and by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division (computational resources). I acknowledge a Junior Research Fellowship from Churchill College, University of Cambridge, during which computer programs underlying this work were written.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Science | |
| Basic Energy Sciences | |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering | |
| UT-Battelle |