Is the Yb2Ti2O7 pyrochlore a quantum spin ice?

Abstract

We use numerical linked cluster (NLC) expansions to compute the specific heat, C(T), and entropy, S(T), of a quantum spin ice model of Yb2Ti2O7 using anisotropic exchange interactions recently determined from inelastic neutron scattering measurements and find good agreement with experimental calorimetric data. In the perturbative weak quantum regime, this model has a ferrimagnetic ordered ground state, with two peaks in C(T): a Schottky anomaly signalling the paramagnetic to spin ice crossover followed at lower temperature by a sharp peak accompanying a first order phase transition to the ferrimagnetic state. We suggest that the two C(T) features observed in Yb2Ti2O7 are associated with the same physics. Spin excitations in this regime consist of weakly confined spinon-antispinon pairs. We suggest that conventional ground state with exotic quantum dynamics will prove a prevalent characteristic of many real quantum spin ice materials.

8 pages (two-column), 9 figures

References in corpus (8)

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Cited by in corpus (13)

• Lightly stuffed pyrochlore structure of single-crystalline Yb2Ti2O7 grown by the optical floating zone technique
• A Short Introduction to Numerical Linked-Cluster Expansions
• Impact of Stoichiometry of Yb2Ti2O7 on its Physical Properties
• Bosonic Many-body Theory of Quantum Spin Ice
• Antiferromagnetic Spin Ice Correlations at (1/2,1/2,1/2) in the Ground State of the Pyrochlore Magnet Tb2Ti2O7
• Low Energy Electrodynamics of Novel Spin Excitations in the Quantum Spin Ice Yb${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$
• Topological Sector Fluctuations and Curie Law Crossover in Spin Ice
• Dirac's "magnetic monopole" in pyrochlore ice U(1) spin liquids: Spectrum and classification
• Order Induced by Dilution in Pyrochlore XY Antiferromagnets
• Magnetic Excitations in the Ground State of $\mathrm{Y}{\mathrm{b}}_2\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{i}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_7$
• Single crystal growth, structure and magnetic properties of Pr2Hf2O7 pyrochlore
• Magnetic dilution and domain selection in the XY pyrochlore antiferromagnet Er${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$
• Inertial effects in systems with magnetic charge