Maxwell electromagnetism as an emergent phenomenon in condensed matter

The formulation of a complete theory of classical electromagnetism by Maxwell is one of the milestones of science. The capacity of many-body systems to provide emergent mini-universes with vacua quite distinct from the one we inhabit was only recognised much later. Here, we provide an account of how simple systems of localised spins manage to emulate Maxwell electromagnetism in their low-energy behaviour. They are much less constrained by symmetry considerations than the relativistically invariant electromagnetic vacuum, as their substrate provides a non-relativistic background with even translational invariance broken. They can exhibit rich behaviour not encountered in conventional electromagnetism. This includes the existence of magnetic monopole excitations arising from fractionalisation of magnetic dipoles; as well as the capacity of disorder, by generating defects on the lattice scale, to produce novel physics, as exemplified by topological spin glassiness or random Coulomb magnetism.Comment: Talk at Royal Society Symposium, "Unifying Physics and Technology in the Light of Maxwell's Equations", November 201

Ground state and low-lying excitations of the spin-1/2 XXZ model on the kagome lattice at magnetization 1/3

We study the ground state and low-lying excitations of the S=1/2 XXZ antiferromagnet on the kagome lattice at magnetization one third of the saturation. An exponential number of non-magnetic states is found below a magnetic gap. The non-magnetic excitations also have a gap above the ground state, but it is much smaller than the magnetic gap. This ground state corresponds to an ordered pattern with resonances in one third of the hexagons. The spin-spin correlation function is short ranged, but there is long-range order of valence-bond crystal type.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure included, to appear in Physica B (proceedings of SCES'04

Multiorbital Spin Susceptibility in a Magnetically Ordered State - Orbital versus Excitonic Spin Density Wave Scenario

We present a general theory of multiorbital spin waves in magnetically ordered metallic systems. Motivated by the itinerant magnetism of iron-based superconductors, we compare the magnetic excitations for two different scenarios: when the magnetic order either sets in on the on-site orbital level; or when it appears as an electron-hole pairing between different bands of electron and hole character. As an example we treat the two-orbital model for iron-based superconductors. For small magnetic moments the spin excitations look similar in both scenarios. Going to larger interactions and larger magnetic moments, the difference between both scenarios becomes striking. While in the excitonic scenario the spin waves form a closed structure over the entire Brillouin zone and the particle-hole continuum is gapped, the spin excitations in the orbital scenario can be treated as spin waves only in a close vicinity to the ordering momenta. The origin of this is a gapless electronic structure with Dirac cones which is a source of large damping. We analyze our results in connection with recent neutron scattering measurements and show that certain features of the orbital scenario with multiple order parameters can be observed experimentally.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Disorder in a quantum spin liquid: flux binding and local moment formation

We study the consequences of disorder in the Kitaev honeycomb model, considering both site dilution and exchange randomness. We show that a single vacancy binds a flux and induces a local moment. This moment is polarised by an applied field $h$: in the gapless phase, for small $h$ the local susceptibility diverges as $\chi(h)\sim\ln(1/h)$; for a pair of nearby vacancies on the same sublattice, this even increases to $\chi(h)\sim1/(h[\ln(1/h)]^{3/2})$. By contrast, weak exchange randomness does not qualitatively alter the susceptibility but has its signature in the heat capacity, which in the gapless phase is power law in temperature with an exponent dependent on disorder strength.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Symmetry Breaking on the Three-Dimensional Hyperkagome Lattice of Na_4Ir_3O_8

We study the antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the highly frustrated, three-dimensional, hyperkagome lattice of Na_4Ir_3O_8 using a series expansion method. We propose a valence bond crystal with a 72 site unit cell as a ground state that supports many, very low lying, singlet excitations. Low energy spinons and triplons are confined to emergent lower-dimensional motifs. Here, and for analogous kagome and pyrochlore states, we suggest finite temperature signatures, including an Ising transition, in the magnetic specific heat due to a multistep breaking of discrete symmetries.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Quantum spin liquids: a large-S route

This paper explores the large-S route to quantum disorder in the Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the pyrochlore lattice and its homologues in lower dimensions. It is shown that zero-point fluctuations of spins shape up a valence-bond solid at low temperatures for one two-dimensional lattice and a liquid with very short-range valence-bond correlations for another. A one-dimensional model demonstrates potential significance of quantum interference effects (as in Haldane's gap): the quantum melting of a valence-bond order yields different valence-bond liquids for integer and half-integer values of S.Comment: Proceedings of Highly Frustrated Magnetism 2003 (Grenoble), 6 LaTeX page

Quasiparticle interference in iron-based superconductors

We systematically calculate quasiparticle interference (QPI) signatures for the whole phase diagram of iron-based superconductors. Impurities inherent in the sample together with ordered phases lead to distinct features in the QPI images that are believed to be measured in spectroscopic imaging-scanning tunneling microscopy (SI-STM). In the spin-density wave phase the rotational symmetry of the electronic structure is broken, signatures of which are also seen in the coexistence regime with both superconducting and magnetic order. In the superconducting regime we show how the different scattering behavior for magnetic and non-magnetic impurities allows to verify the $s^{+-}$ symmetry of the order parameter. The effect of possible gap minima or nodes is discussed.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

Frustrated magnetism and resonating valence bond physics in two-dimensional kagome-like magnets

We explore the phase diagram and the low-energy physics of three Heisenberg antiferromagnets which, like the kagome lattice, are networks of corner-sharing triangles but contain two sets of inequivalent short-distance resonance loops. We use a combination of exact diagonalization, analytical strong-coupling theories, and resonating valence bond approaches, and scan through the ratio of the two inequivalent exchange couplings. In one limit, the lattices effectively become bipartite, while at the opposite limit heavily frustrated nets emerge. In between, competing tunneling processes result in short-ranged spin correlations, a manifold of low-lying singlets (which can be understood as localized bound states of magnetic excitations), and the stabilization of valence bond crystals with resonating building blocks.Comment: Published versio