Abstract
Spiral spin liquids are correlated paramagnetic states with degenerate propagation vectors forming a continuous ring or surface in reciprocal space. On the honeycomb lattice, spiral spin liquids present a novel route to realize emergent fracton excitations, quantum spin liquids, and topological spin textures, yet experimental realizations remain elusive. Here, using neutron scattering, we show that a spiral spin liquid is realized in the van der Waals honeycomb magnet FeCl3. A continuous ring of scattering is directly observed, which indicates the emergence of an approximate U(1) symmetry in momentum space. Our work demonstrates that spiral spin liquids can be achieved in two-dimensional systems and provides a promising platform to study the fracton physics in spiral spin liquids.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 227201 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 128 |
| Issue number | 22 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 3 2022 |
Funding
We acknowledge helpful discussions with Cheng-Long Zhang at RIKEN CEMS. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. This research used resources at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), both are DOE Office of Science User Facilities operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).