A new elementary-excitation, the so called "breather excitation", is observed
directly by millimeter-submillimeter wave electron spin resonance (ESR) in the
Heisenberg quantum spin-chain Cu benzoate, in which a field-induced gap is
found recently by specific heat and neutron scattering measurements. Distinct
anomalies were found in line width and in resonance field around the "dynamical
crossover" regime between the gap-less spinon-regime and the gapped
breather-regime. When the temperature becomes sufficiently lower than the
energy gap, a new ESR-line with very narrow line-width is found, which is the
manifestation of the breather excitation. The non-linear field dependence of
the resonance field agrees well with the theoretical formula of the first
breather-excitation proposed by Oshikawa and Affleck. The present work
establishes experimentally for the first time that a sine-Gordon model is
applicable to explain spin dynamics in a S=1/2 Heisenberg spin chain subjected
to staggered field even in high fields.Comment: Revtex, 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let