Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid behavior and spinon confinement in YbAlO<sub>3</sub>.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30741939.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-08485-7 and PMC identifier 6370837.
- 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
Low dimensional quantum magnets are interesting because of the emerging collective behavior arising from strong quantum fluctuations. The one-dimensional (1D) S = 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet is a paradigmatic example, whose low-energy excitations, known as spinons, carry fractional spin S = 1/2. These fractional modes can be reconfined by the application of a staggered magnetic field. Even though considerable progress has been made in the theoretical understanding of such magnets, experimental realizations of this low-dimensional physics are relatively rare. This is particularly true for rare-earth-based magnets because of the large effective spin anisotropy induced by the combination of strong spin-orbit coupling and crystal field splitting. Here, we demonstrate that the rare-earth perovskite YbAlO<sub>3</sub> provides a realization of a quantum spin S = 1/2 chain material exhibiting both quantum critical Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid behavior and spinon confinement-deconfinement transitions in different regions of magnetic field-temperature phase diagram.