The magnetic structure of Gd_2Ti_2O_7

Abstract

We attempt to solve the magnetic structure of the gadolinium analogue of `spin-ice', using a mixture of experimental and theoretical assumptions. The eventual predictions are essentially consistent with both the Mossbauer and neutron measurements but are unrelated to previous proposals. We find two possible distinct states, one of which is coplanar and the other is fully three-dimensional. We predict that close to the initial transition the preferred state is coplanar but that at the lowest temperature the ground-state becomes fully three-dimensional. Unfortunately the energetics are consequently complicated. There is a dominant nearest-neighbour Heisenberg interaction but then a compromise solution for lifting the final degeneracy resulting from a competition between longer-range Heisenberg interactions and direct dipolar interactions on similar energy scales.

12 pages, 15 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Magnetic ordering in Gd2Sn2O7: the archetypal Heisenberg pyrochlore antiferromagnet
• Magnetic density of states at low energy in geometrically frustrated systems
• Single-ion anisotropy in the gadolinium pyrochlores studied by an electron paramagnetic resonance

Cited by in corpus (5)

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• Titanium pyrochlore magnets: how much can be learned from magnetization measurements?
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• Novel magnetic phases in a Gd2Ti2O7 pyrochlore for a field applied along the [100] axis
• Traversing the pyrochlore stability diagram; microwave-assisted synthesis and discovery of mixed B-site Ln${}_2$InSbO${}_7$ family