New high field magnet for neutron scattering at Hahn Meitner Institute

Abstract The Berlin Neutron Scattering Center BENSC at the Hahn Meitner Institute HMI is a user facility for the study of structure and dynamics of condensed matter with neutrons and synchrotron radiation with special emphasis on experiments under extreme conditions. Neutron scattering is uniquely suited to study magnetic properties on a microscopic length scale, because neutrons have comparable wavelengths and, due to their magnetic moment, they interact with the atomic magnetic moments. Magnetic interactions and magnetic phenomena depend on thermodynamic parameters like magnetic field, temperature and pressure. At HMI special efforts are being made to offer outstanding sample environments such as very low temperatures or high magnetic fields or combination of both. For the future a dedicated instrument for neutron scattering at extreme fields is under construction, the Extreme Environment Diffractometer ExED. For this instrument the existing superconducting magnets as well as a future hybrid system can be used. The highest fields, above 30 T will be produced by the planned series connected hybrid magnet system, designed and constructed in collaboration with the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Tallahassee, F

Finite-temperature perturbation theory for quasi-one-dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnets

We develop a finite-temperature perturbation theory for quasi-one-dimensional quantum spin systems, in the manner suggested by H.J. Schulz (1996) and use this formalism to study their dynamical response. The corrections to the random-phase approximation formula for the dynamical magnetic susceptibility obtained with this method involve multi-point correlation functions of the one-dimensional theory on which the random-phase approximation expansion is built. This ``anisotropic'' perturbation theory takes the form of a systematic high-temperature expansion. This formalism is first applied to the estimation of the N\'eel temperature of S=1/2 cubic lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnets. It is then applied to the compound Cs$_2$CuCl$_4$, a frustrated S=1/2 antiferromagnet with a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya anisotropy. Using the next leading order to the random-phase approximation, we determine the improved values for the critical temperature and incommensurability. Despite the non-universal character of these quantities, the calculated values are different by less than a few percent from the experimental values for both compounds.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure

Comparison of the biotypes of Yersinia enterocolitica isolated from pigs, cattle and sheep at slaughter and from humans with yersiniosis in Great Britain during 1999-2000

Aims: To investigate the relationship between livestock carriage of Yersinia enterocolitica and human disease. The biotypes/serotypes of strains recovered from the faeces of pigs, cattle and sheep at slaughter during a national survey in Great Britain in 1999-2000, were compared with those of strains isolated from human cases of yersiniosis during the same period. Methods and Results: The faecal carriage of Y. enterocolitica by cattle, sheep and pigs at slaughter was 6.3, 10.7 and 26.1%, respectively. Yersinia enterocolitica biotype (BT) 1a was the most frequently isolated biotype from livestock (58%) and was the predominant biotype (53%) isolated from human cases over the same period. The main recognized pathogenic Y. enterocolitica biotype isolated from livestock was BT3 (O:5,27) (35% of sheep, 22% of pigs and 4% of cattle) but this biotype was not detected in any of the human isolates investigated. The major pathogenic biotypes of strains isolated from humans were BT3 (O:9) (24%) and BT4 (O:3) (19%) whereas of the veterinary isolates investigated, only pigs (11%) carried BT3 (O:9) strains. Conclusions: Because of significant overlaps in phenotypes of the veterinary and human strains it is not possible to comment on the correlation between host and pathogenicity, especially of biotype 1a. Significance and Impact of the Study: The data suggest that further investigations using methods with greater discriminatory power are required. However the data also suggests that pigs may be the primary reservoir for human pathogenic Y. enterocolitica infection

Temperature dependence of single particle excitations in a S=1 chain: exact diagonalization calculations compared to neutron scattering experiments

Exact diagonalization calculations of finite antiferromagnetic spin-1 Heisenberg chains at finite temperatures are presented and compared to a recent inelastic neutron scattering experiment for temperatures T up to 7.5 times the intrachain exchange constant J. The calculations show that the excitations at the antiferromagnetic point q=1 and at q=0.5 remain resonant up to at least T=2J, confirming the recent experimental observation of resonant high-temperature domain wall excitations. The predicted first and second moments are in good agreement with experiment, except at temperatures where three-dimensional spin correlations are most important. The ratio of the structure factors at q=1 and at q=0.5 is well predicted for the paramagnetic infinite-temperature limit. For T=2J, however, we found that the experimentally observed intensity is considerably less than predicted. This suggests that domain wall excitations on different chains interact up to temperatures of the order of the spin band width.Comment: 9 pages revtex, submitted to PR

Heisenberg Dimer Single Molecule Magnets in a Strong Magnetic Field

We calculate the static and dynamic properties of single crystal, single molecule magnets consisting of equal spin $S=1/2$ or 5/2 dimers. The spins in each dimer interact with each other via the Heisenberg exchange interaction and with the magnetic induction ${\bf B}$ via the Zeeman interaction, and interdimer interactions are negligible. For antiferromagnetic couplings, the static magnetization and specific heat exhibit interesting low temperature $T$ and strong ${\bf B}$ quantum effects. We calculate the frequency spectrum of the Fourier transform of the real part of the time autocorrelation function ${\cal C}_{11}(t)$ for arbitrary $T, {\bf B}$, and compare our results with those obtained for classical spins. We also calculate the inelastic neutron magnetic dynamical structure factor $S({\bf q},\omega)$ at arbitrary $T, {\bf B}$.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Coordinate Representation of the Two-Spinon wavefunction and Spinon Interaction

By deriving and studying the coordinate representation for the two-spinon wavefunction, we show that spinon excitations in the Haldane-Shastry model interact. The interaction is given by a short-range attraction and causes a resonant enhancement in the two-spinon wavefunction at short separations between the spinons. We express the spin susceptibility for a finite lattice in terms of the resonant enhancement, given by the two-spinon wavefunction at zero separation. In the thermodynamic limit, the spinon attraction turns into the square-root divergence in the dynamical spin susceptibility.Comment: 19 pages, 5 .eps figure

Coexistence of double alternating antiferromagnetic chains in (VO)_2P_2O_7 : NMR study

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of 31P and 51V nuclei has been measured in a spin-1/2 alternating-chain compound (VO)_2P_2O_7. By analyzing the temperature variation of the 31P NMR spectra, we have found that (VO)_2P_2O_7 has two independent spin components with different spin-gap energies. The spin gaps are determined from the temperature dependence of the shifts at 31P and 51V sites to be 35 K and 68 K, which are in excellent agreement with those observed in the recent inelastic neutron scattering experiments [A.W. Garrett et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 745 (1997)]. This suggests that (VO)_2P_2O_7 is composed of two magnetic subsystems showing distinct magnetic excitations, which are associated with the two crystallographically-inequivalent V chains running along the b axis. The difference of the spin-gap energies between the chains is attributed to the small differences in the V-V distances, which may result in the different exchange alternation in each magnetic chain. The exchange interactions in each alternating chain are estimated and are discussed based on the empirical relation between the exchange interaction and the interatomic distance.Comment: 10 pages, 11 embedded eps figures, REVTeX, Submitted to Phys. Rev.

A microscopic model for a class of mixed-spin quantum antiferromagnets

We propose a microscopic model that describes the magnetic behavior of the mixed-spin quantum systems R$_2$BaNiO$_5$ (R= magnetic rare earth). An evaluation of the properties of this model by Quantum Monte Carlo simulations shows remarkable good agreement with the experimental data and provides new insight into the physics of mixed-spin quantum magnets.Comment: revised version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Motion of Bound Domain Walls in a Spin Ladder

The elementary excitation spectrum of the spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ antiferromagnetic (AFM) Heisenberg chain is described in terms of a pair of freely propagating spinons. In the case of the Ising-like Heisenberg Hamiltonian spinons can be interpreted as domain walls (DWs) separating degenerate ground states. In dimension $d>1$, the issue of spinons as elementary excitations is still unsettled. In this paper, we study two spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ AFM ladder models in which the individual chains are described by the Ising-like Heisenberg Hamiltonian. The rung exchange interactions are assumed to be pure Ising-type in one case and Ising-like Heisenberg in the other. Using the low-energy effective Hamiltonian approach in a perturbative formulation, we show that the spinons are coupled in bound pairs. In the first model, the bound pairs are delocalized due to a four-spin ring exchange term in the effective Hamiltonian. The appropriate dynamic structure factor is calculated and the associated lineshape is found to be almost symmetric in contrast to the 1d case. In the case of the second model, the bound pair of spinons lowers its kinetic energy by propagating between chains. The results obtained are consistent with recent theoretical studies and experimental observations on ladder-like materials.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure