The magnetic pyrochlore oxide materials of general chemical formula R2Ti2O7
and R2Sn2O7 (R = rare earth) display a host of interesting physical behaviours
depending on the flavour of rare earth ion. These properties depend on the
value of the total magnetic moment, the crystal field interactions at each rare
earth site and the complex interplay between magnetic exchange and long-range
dipole-dipole interactions. This work focuses on the low temperature physics of
the dipolar isotropic frustrated antiferromagnetic pyrochlore materials.
Candidate magnetic ground states are numerically determined at zero temperature
and the role of quantum spin fluctuations around these states are studied using
a Holstein-Primakoff spin wave expansion to order 1/S. The results indicate the
strong stability of the proposed classical ground states against quantum
fluctuations. The inclusion of long range dipole interactions causes a
restoration of symmetry and a suppression of the observed anisotropy gap
leading to an increase in quantum fluctuations in the ground state when
compared to a model with truncated dipole interactions. The system retains most
of its classical character and there is little deviation from the fully ordered
moment at zero temperature.Comment: Latex2e, 18 pages, 4 figures, IOP forma