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At least 217 records · Page 12

Anomalies of coset non-invertible symmetries

Anomalies of global symmetries provide important information on the quantum dynamics. We show the dynamical constraints can be organized into three classes: genuine anomalies, fractional topological responses, and integer responses that can be realized in symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases. Coset symmetry can be present in many physical systems including quantum spin liquids, and the coset symmetry can be a non-invertible symmetry. We introduce twists in coset symmetries, which modify the fusion rules and the generalized Frobenius-Schur indicators. We call such coset symmetries twisted coset symmetries, and they are labeled by the quadruple (G, K, ω D+1 , α D ) in D spacetime dimensions where G is a group and K ⊂ G is a discrete subgroup, ω D+1 is a (D + 1)-cocycle for group G, and α D is a D-cochain for group K. We present several examples with twisted coset symmetries using lattice models and field theory, including both gapped and gapless systems (such as gapless symmetry-protected topological phases). We investigate the anomalies of general twisted coset symmetry, which presents obstructions to realizing the coset symmetry in (gapped) symmetry-protected topological phases. We show that finite coset symmetry G/K becomes anomalous when G cannot be expressed as the bicrossed product G = H ⋈ K , and such anomalous coset symmetry leads to symmetry-enforced gaplessness in generic spacetime dimensions. We illustrate examples of anomalous coset symmetries with A 5 / \Z 2 symmetry, with realizations in lattice models.

Hsin, Po-Shen [King’s College London (United Kingd↗

Freezing of a Disorder Induced Spin Liquid with Strong Quantum Fluctuations

We report Sr2CuTe 0.5 W 0.5 O 6 is a square-lattice magnet with superexchange between S =$\frac{1}{2}$Cu 2+ spins mediated by randomly distributed Te and W ions. Here, using sub-K temperature and 20 μeV energy resolution neutron scattering experiments we show that this system transits from a gapless disorder-induced spin liquid to a new quantum state below T f =1.7(1) K, exhibiting a weak frozen moment of $\langle$S$\rangle$/S~0.1 and low energy dynamic susceptibility, χ"(ℏω), linear in energy which is surprising for such a weak freezing in this highly fluctuating quantum regime.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Spin liquid to spin glass crossover in the random quantum Heisenberg magnet

We study quantum SU($M$) spins with all-to-all and random Heisenberg exchange interactions of root-mean-square strength $J$. The $M \rightarrow \infty$ model has a spin liquid ground state with the spinons obeying the equations of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. Numerical studies of the SU(2) model with $S=1/2$ spins show spin glass order in the ground state, but also display SYK spin liquid behavior in the intermediate frequency spin spectrum. We employ a $1/M$ expansion to describe the crossover from fractionalized fermionic spinons to a confining spin glass state with weak spin glass order $q_{EA}$. The SYK spin liquid behavior persists down to a frequency $\omega_\ast \sim J q_{EA}$, and for $\omega < \omega_\ast$, the spectral density is linear in $\omega$, thus quenching the extensive zero temperature entropy of the spin liquid. Furthermore, the linear $\omega$ spectrum is qualitatively similar to that obtained earlier using bosonic spinons for large $q_{EA}$. We argue that the extensive SYK spin liquid entropy is transformed as $T \rightarrow 0$ to an extensive complexity of the spin glass state.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Magnetic phase transitions in quantum spin-orbital liquids

Here, we investigate the spin and orbital correlations of a superexchange model with spin $\textit{S}$ = 1 and orbital $\textit{L}$ = 1 relevant for $5d^4$ transition-metal Mott insulators, using exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG). For spin-orbit coupling λ = 0, the orbitals are in an entangled state that is decoupled from the spins. We find two phases with increasing λ: (I) the $\textit{S}$2 phase with two peaks in the structure factor for λ ≤ λ$_{c1}$ ≈ 0.34$\textit{J}$ where $\textit{J}$ is the ferromagnetic exchange; and, (II) the $\textit{S}$1 phase for λ$_{c1}$ < λ ≤ λ$_{c2}$ ≈ 1.2$\textit{J}$ with emergent antiferromagnetic correlations. Both $\textit{S}$1 and $\textit{S}$2 phases are shown to exhibit power-law correlations, indicative of a gapless spectrum. Upon increasing λ > λ$_{c2}$ leads to a product state of local spin-orbital singlets that exhibit exponential decay of correlations, indicative of a gapped phase. We obtain insights into the phases from the well-known Uimin-Lai-Sutherland model in an external field that provides an approximate description of our model within mean-field theory.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Role of generic scale invariance in a Mott transition from a U(1) spin-liquid insulator to a Landau Fermi-liquid metal

Highlights: • We look at the role played by generic scale invariance (GSI) in the phase transition between a U(1) spin liquid and a Fermi liquid. • We identify dangerously irrelevant operators in the renormalization group transformation, involved with the GSI. • We highlight novel mean-field dynamics of this Mott quantum criticality, resulting from the GSI. We investigate the role of generic scale invariance in a Mott transition from a U(1) spin-liquid insulator to a Landau Fermi-liquid metal, where there exist massless degrees of freedom in addition to quantum critical fluctuations. Here, the Mott quantum criticality is described by critical charge fluctuations, and additional gapless excitations are U(1) gauge-field fluctuations coupled to a spinon Fermi surface in the spin-liquid state, which turn out to play a central role in the Mott transition. An interesting feature of this problem is that the scaling dimension of effective leading local interactions between critical charge fluctuations differs from that of the coupling constant between U(1) gauge fields and matter-field fluctuations in the presence of a Fermi surface. As a result, there appear dangerously irrelevant operators, which can cause conceptual difficulty in the implementation of renormalization group (RG) transformations. Indeed, we find that the curvature term along the angular direction of the spinon Fermi surface is dangerously irrelevant at this spin-liquid Mott quantum criticality, responsible for divergence of the self-energy correction term in U(1) gauge-field fluctuations. Performing the RG analysis in the one-loop level based on the dimensional regularization method, we reveal that such extremely overdamped dynamics of U(1) gauge-field fluctuations, which originates from the emergent one-dimensional dynamics of spinons, does not cause any renormalization effects to the effective dynamics of both critical charge fluctuations and spinon excitations. However, it turns out that the coupling between U(1) gauge-field fluctuations and both matter-field excitations still persists at this Mott transition, which results in novel mean-field dynamics to explain the nature of the spin-liquid Mott quantum criticality. We discuss physical implications of effective one-dimensional spin dynamics and extremely overdamped gauge dynamics at the Mott quantum criticality.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Structural and magnetic characterization of CeTa 7 ⁢O 19 and YbTa 7 ⁢ O 19 with a two-dimensional pseudospin-$\frac{1}{2}$ triangular lattice

Triangular lattice antiferromagnets are prototypes for frustrated magnetism and may potentially realize novel quantum magnetic states such as a quantum spin-liquid ground state. A recent work suggests NdTa 7 ⁢O 19 with rare-earth triangular lattice is a quantum spin-liquid candidate and highlights the large family of rare-earth heptatantalates as a framework for quantum magnetism investigation. Here, in this paper, we report the structural and magnetic characterization of CeTa 7 ⁢ O 19 and YbTa 7 ⁢ O 19 . Both compounds are isostructural to NdTa 7 ⁢O 19 with no detectable structural disorder. For CeTa 7 ⁢O 19 , the crystal field energy levels and parameters are determined by inelastic neutron scattering measurements. Based on the crystal field result, the magnetic susceptibility data could be well fitted and explained, which reveals that CeTa 7 ⁢O 19 is a highly anisotropic Ising triangular-lattice antiferromagnet (𝑔 𝑧 ⁡/𝑔 𝑥⁢𝑦 ∼ 3) with very weak exchange interaction (J ∼ 0.22 K). For YbTa 7⁢ O 19 , millimeter-sized single crystals could be grown. The anisotropic magnetization and electron spin resonance data show that YbTa 7⁢ O 19 has a contrasting in-plane magnetic anisotropy with 𝑔 𝑧 ⁡/𝑔 𝑥⁢𝑦 ∼ 0.67 similar as that of YbMgGaO 4 . The above results indicate that CeTa7⁢ O 19 and YbTa 7 ⁢O 19 with pseudospin-1/2 ground states might either be quantum spin-liquid candidate materials or find applications in adiabatic demagnetization refrigeration due to the weak exchange interaction.

Pan, Feihao↗

Spin phase diagram of the interacting quantum Hall liquid

Measurement of the ground-state spin polarization of quantum systems offers great potential for the discovery and characterization of correlated electronic states. However, spin polarization measurements have mainly involved optical and NMR techniques that perturb the delicate ground states and, for quantum Hall systems, have provided conflicting results. In this work we present spin-resolved pulsed tunnelling (SRPT) that precisely determines the phase diagram of the ground-state spin polarization as a function of magnetic field and Landau level (LL) filling factor ($ν$) with negligible perturbation to the system. Our phase diagram shows a variety of polarized, unpolarized and topological spin states in the lowest (N = 0) LL, which can largely be described by a weakly interacting composite fermion (CF) model7. However, the phase diagram shows unexpected behaviour in the N = 1 LL. We observe fully polarized $ν$ = 5/2 and 8/3 states but a partially depolarized $ν$ = 7/3 state. This behaviour deviates from the conventional theoretical picture of weakly interacting fractional quasiparticles, but instead suggests unusual electronic correlations and the possibility of new non-Abelian phases. The results establish SRPT as a powerful technique for investigating correlated electron phenomena.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Oscillations of the thermal conductivity in the spin-liquid state of α-RuCl 3

In the class of materials called spin liquids a magnetically ordered state cannot be attained even at millikelvin temperatures because of conflicting constraints on each spin; for example, from geometric or exchange frustration. The resulting quantum spin-liquid state is currently of intense interest because it exhibits unusual excitations as well as wave-function entanglement. The layered insulator α-RuCl 3 orders as a zigzag antiferromagnet at low temperature in zero magnetic field. The zigzag order is destroyed when a magnetic field is applied parallel to the zigzag axis. At moderate magnetic field strength, there is growing evidence that a quantum spin-liquid state exists. Here we report the observation of oscillations in its thermal conductivity in that field range. The oscillations, whose amplitude is very large within this field range and strongly suppressed on either side, are periodic. This is analogous to quantum oscillations in metals, even though α-RuCl 3 is an excellent insulator with a large gap. As the temperature is raised above 0.5 K, the oscillation amplitude decreases exponentially, anticorrelating with the emergence of an anomalous planar thermal Hall conductivity above approximately 2 K.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Magnetoelastic coupling anisotropy in the Kitaev material α-RuCl 3

Here we show that the Kitaev material α-RuCl 3 is among the most prominent candidates to host a quantum spin-liquid state endowed with fractionalized excitations. Recent experimental and theoretical investigations have separately revealed the importance of both the magnetoelastic coupling and the magnetic anisotropy in dependence of the applied magnetic-field direction. In this combined theoretical and experimental research, we investigate the anisotropic magnetic and magnetoelastic properties for magnetic fields applied along the main crystallographic axes as well as for fields canted out of the honeycomb plane. We found that the magnetostriction anisotropy is unusually large compared to the anisotropy of the magnetization, which is related to the strong magnetoelastic $\tilde{Γ}'$-type coupling in our ab-initio derived model. We observed large, nonsymmetric magnetic anisotropy for magnetic fields canted out of the honeycomb ab plane in opposite directions, namely, toward the +c* or -c* axes, respectively. The observed directional anisotropy is explained by considering the relative orientation of the magnetic field with respect to the coaligned RuCl 6 octahedra. Magnetostriction measurements in canted fields support this nonsymmetric magnetic anisotropy; however, these experiments are affected by magnetic torque effects. Comparison of theoretical predictions with experimental findings allow us to recognize the significant contribution of torque effects in experimental setups where α-RuCl 3 is placed in canted magnetic fields.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Phase Diagram of the Easy-Axis Triangular-Lattice 𝐽 1 −𝐽 2 Model

Our work studies the largely unexplored phase diagram of the S = 1/2 easy-axis triangular-lattice J 1 -J 2 model, motivated by recent interest in rare-earth and transition-metal compounds that exhibit strong quantum fluctuations and broad spin excitation continua—hallmarks of spin-liquid behavior. Combining density-matrix renormalization group simulations with analytical insights, we present a comprehensive study of the model that describes these materials. Our results provide compelling evidence for a robust spin-liquid phase stabilized between the exotic supersolid Y phase and the collinear stripe phase, remarkably persistent even in the presence of symmetry-breaking anisotropy. Additionally, we analyze the supersolid Y phase, offering a quantitative characterization of its order parameters and clarifying the surprising absence of a ferromagnetic moment; both features relevant to recent experiments on Ising-like triangular-lattice magnets. Altogether, our work provides the necessary framework and important theoretical guidance to the ongoing searches of the spin liquid and other exotic states in the rare-earth and transition-metal triangular-lattice compounds, as well as for advancing the understanding of anisotropic-exchange magnets.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Thermal Probes of Phonon-Coupled Kitaev Spin Liquids: From Accurate Extraction of Quantized Edge Transport to Anyon Interferometry

Recent theoretical studies inspired by experiments on the Kitaev magnet α-RuCl 3 highlight the nontrivial impact of phonons on the thermal Hall conductivity of chiral topological phases. Here, we introduce mixed mesoscopic-macroscopic devices that allow refined thermal-transport probes of non-Abelian spin liquids with Ising topological order. These devices feature a quantum-coherent region with quantized or negligible phonon conductance, flanked by macroscopic lobes that facilitate efficient thermalization between chiral Majorana edge modes and bulk phonons. We show that our devices enable (i) accurate determination of the quantized thermal Hall conductivity, (ii) identification of non-Abelian Ising anyons via the temperature dependence of the thermal conductance, and, most interestingly, (iii) single-anyon detection through heat-based anyon interferometry. Analogous results apply broadly to phonon-coupled chiral topological orders.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Gate-tunable heavy fermion quantum criticality in a moiré Kondo lattice

We propose a realization of Kondo lattice physics in moiré superlattices at the interface between a WX 2 homobilayer and MoX 2 monolayer (X = S,Se). Under appropriate gating conditions, the interface WX 2 layer forms a triangular lattice of local moments that couple to itinerant electrons in the other WX 2 layer via a gate-tunable Kondo exchange interaction. Using a parton mean-field approach, we identify a range of twist angles which support a gate-tuned quantum phase transition between a heavy Fermi liquid with large anomalous Hall conductance and a chiral spin liquid coexisting with a light Fermi liquid and describe experimental signatures to distinguish among competing theoretical scenarios.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Spin dynamics in quantum dots on liquid helium

Liquid He-4 is free from magnetic defects, making it an ideal substrate for electrons with long-lived spin states. Such states can serve as qubit states. Here, in this study, we consider the spin states of electrons electrostatically localized in quantum dots on a helium surface. Efficient gate operations in this system require spin-orbit coupling. It can be created by a nonuniform magnetic field from a current-carrying wire, can be turned on and off, and allows one to obtain large electrodipole moment and comparatively fast coupling of spins in neighboring dots. Of central importance is to understand spin decay due to the spin-orbit coupling. We establish the leading mechanism of such decay and show that the decay is sufficiently slow to enable high-fidelity single- and two-qubit gate operations.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

CHESS: The future direct geometry spectrometer at the second target station

CHESS, chopper spectrometer examining small samples, is a planned direct geometry neutron chopper spectrometer designed to detect and analyze weak signals intrinsic to small cross sections (e.g., small mass, small magnetic moments, or neutron absorbing materials) in powders, liquids, and crystals. CHESS is optimized to enable transformative investigations of quantum materials, spin liquids, thermoelectrics, battery materials, and liquids. The broad dynamic range of the instrument is also well suited to study relaxation processes and excitations in soft and biological matter. The 15 Hz repetition rate of the Second Target Station at the Spallation Neutron Source enables the use of multiple incident energies within a single source pulse, greatly expanding the information gained in a single measurement. Furthermore, the high flux grants an enhanced capability for polarization analysis. This enables the separation of nuclear from magnetic scattering or coherent from incoherent scattering in hydrogenous materials over a large range of energy and momentum transfer. This paper presents optimizations and technical solutions to address the key requirements envisioned in the science case and the anticipated uses of this instrument.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Ground state in proximity to a possible Kitaev spin liquid: The undistorted honeycomb iridate Na x IrO 3 (0.60 ≤ x ≤ 0.80)

Here, we report the results of our study of a recently synthesized honeycomb iridate Na x IrO 3 (0.60 ≤ x ≤ 0.80). Single-crystal Na x IrO 3 adopts a honeycomb lattice noticeably without distortions and stacking disorder inherently existent in its sister compound Na 2 IrO 3 . The oxidation state of the Ir ion is a mixed valence state resulting from a majority Ir 5+ (5d 4 ) ion and a minority Ir 6+ (5d 3 ) ion. Na x IrO 3 is a Mott insulator likely with a predominant pseudospin =1 state. It exhibits an effective moment of 1.1 μB/Ir and a Curie-Weiss temperature of –19 K but with no discernible long-range order above 1 K. The physical behavior below 1 K features two prominent anomalies at T h = 0.9 K and T l = 0.12 K in both the heat capacity and AC magnetic susceptibility. Intermediate between T h and T l lies a pronounced temperature linearity of the heat capacity with a large slope of 77 mJ /mole K 2 , a feature expected for highly correlated metals but not at all for insulators. These results along with a comparison drawn with the honeycomb lattices Na 2 IrO 3 and (Na 0.2 Li 0.8 ) 2 IrO 3 point to an exotic ground state in proximity to a possible Kitaev spin liquid.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗