Strong quantum effects in an almost classical antiferromagnet on a kagome lattice

Two ubiquitous features of frustrated spin systems stand out: massive degeneracy of their ground states and flat, or dispersionless, excitation branches. In real materials, the former is frequently lifted by secondary interactions or quantum fluctuations, in favor of an ordered or spin-liquid state, but the latter often survive. We demonstrate that flat modes may precipitate remarkably strong quantum effects even in the systems that are otherwise written off as almost entirely classical. The resultant spectral features should be reminiscent of the quasiparticle breakdown in quantum systems, only here the effect is strongly amplified by the flatness of spin-excitation branches, leading to the damping that is not vanishingly small even at $S\!\gg\!1$. We provide a theoretical analysis of excitation spectrum of the $S=5/2$ iron-jarosite to illustrate our findings and to suggest further studies of this and other frustrated spin systems.Comment: 7 pages, accepted to PR

Damped Topological Magnons in the Kagom\'{e}-Lattice Ferromagnets

We demonstrate that interactions can substantially undermine the free-particle description of magnons in ferromagnets on geometrically frustrated lattices. The anharmonic coupling, facilitated by the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction, and a highly-degenerate two-magnon continuum yield a strong, non-perturbative damping of the high-energy magnon modes. We provide a detailed account of the effect for the $S=1/2$ ferromagnet on the kagom\'e lattice and propose further experiments.Comment: 4.5 p + 4 figs main, 8 p + 16 figs supplemental, typos correcte

Heat Transport in Spin Chains with Weak Spin-Phonon Coupling

The heat transport in a system of $S=1/2$ large-$J$ Heisenberg spin chains, describing closely Sr$_2$CuO$_3$ and SrCuO$_2$ cuprates, is studied theoretically at $T\ll J$ by considering interactions of the bosonized spin excitations with optical phonons and defects. Treating rigorously the multi-boson processes, we derive a microscopic spin-phonon scattering rate that adheres to an intuitive picture of phonons acting as thermally populated defects for the fast spin excitations. The mean-free path of the latter exhibits a distinctive $T$-dependence reflecting a critical nature of spin chains and gives a close description of experiments. By the naturalness criterion of realistically small spin-phonon interaction, our approach stands out from previous considerations that require large coupling constants to explain the data and thus imply a spin-Peierls transition, absent in real materials.Comment: 5+ pages main text, 4+ pages supplemental, 4+2 figures, adiabatic approximation to the published versio

Thermal conductivity in large-JJ two-dimensional antiferromagnets: Role of phonon scattering

Motivated by the recent heat transport experiments in 2D antiferromagnets, such as La$_2$CuO$_4$, where the exchange coupling $J$ is larger than the Debye energy $\Theta_{\rm D}$, we discuss different types of relaxation processes for magnon heat current with a particular focus on coupling to 3D phonons. We study thermal conductivity by these in-plane magnetic excitations using two distinct techniques, Boltzmann formalism within the relaxation-time approximation and memory-function approach. Within these approaches, a close consideration is given to the scattering of magnons by both acoustic and optical branches of phonons. A remarkable accord between the two methods with regards to the asymptotic behavior of the effective relaxation rates is demonstrated. Additional scattering mechanisms, due to grain boundaries, impurities, and finite correlation length in the paramagnetic phase, are discussed and included in the calculations of the thermal conductivity $\kappa(T)$. Again, we demonstrate a close similarity of the results from the two techniques of calculating $\kappa(T)$. Our complementary approach strongly suggests that scattering from optical or zone-boundary phonons is important for magnon heat current relaxation in a high temperature window of $\Theta_D\lesssim T \ll J$.Comment: 21+ pages, 16 figure

The representations of the Hubbard algebra in terms of spin-fermion operators and motion of a hole in an antiferromagnetic state

The representation of the Hubbard operators in terms of the spin$-\frac{1}{2}$ operators and the fermion operator with spin$-\frac{1}{2}$ is proposed. In the low-energy limit this representation is reduced to the representation following from the Hubbard diagramm technique. In framework of this approach motion of a hole in an antiferromagnetic state of the t-J model is considered. It is shown that the primary hole energy is strongly renormalized and the band width has an order of J rather than t. The functional integral for the strongly correlated model induced by the obtained representation is formulated. The representation of the total Hubbard algebra for states in the lower and the upper Hubbard bands is formulated in terms of the spin$-\frac{1}{2}$ and two fermion fields with spin$-\frac{1}{2}$ is formulated.Comment: 12 pp. (LATEX

Quantum Selection of Order in an XXZXXZ Antiferromagnet on a Kagom\'e Lattice

Selection of the ground state of the kagom\'e-lattice $XXZ$ antiferromagnet by quantum fluctuations is investigated by combining non-linear spin-wave and real-space perturbation theories. The two methods unanimously favor ${\bf q}=0$ over $\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$ magnetic order in a wide range of the anisotropy parameter $0\leq \Delta\leq 0.72$. Both approaches are also in an accord on the magnitude of the quantum order-by-disorder effect generated by topologically non-trivial, loop-like spin-flip processes. A tentative $S-\Delta$ phase diagram of the model is proposed.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures + 6.2 pages, 4 figures supplemental, minor changes, accepted versio