A spin-liquid with pinch-line singularities on the pyrochlore lattice.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27225400.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms11572 and PMC identifier 4894955.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The mathematics of gauge theories lies behind many of the most profound advances in physics in the past 200 years, from Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism to Einstein's theory of general relativity. More recently it has become clear that gauge theories also emerge in condensed matter, a prime example being the spin-ice materials which host an emergent electromagnetic gauge field. In spin-ice, the underlying gauge structure is revealed by the presence of pinch-point singularities in neutron-scattering measurements. Here we report the discovery of a spin-liquid where the low-temperature physics is naturally described by the fluctuations of a tensor field with a continuous gauge freedom. This gauge structure underpins an unusual form of spin correlations, giving rise to pinch-line singularities: line-like analogues of the pinch points observed in spin-ice. Remarkably, these features may already have been observed in the pyrochlore material Tb2Ti2O7.