An anisotropic local modification of crystal field levels in Pr-based pyrochlores: a muon-induced effect modelled using density functional theory

Abstract

Muon spin relaxation measurements on some quantum spin ice candidate materials, the insulating pyrochlores Pr2B2O7 (B = Sn, Zr, Hf), have been performed for temperatures in the range 0.05-280 K. The results are indicative of a static distribution of magnetic moments which appears to grow on cooling and whose size at low temperatures is significantly larger than that expected for Pr nuclear moments. Using density functional theory we show how this effect can be explained via a hyperfine enhancement arising from a splitting of the non-Kramers doublet ground states on Pr ions close to the muon which itself causes a highly anisotropic distortion field. We provide a quantitative relationship between this effect and the measured temperature dependence of the muon relaxation and discuss the relevance of these observations to muon experiments in other frustrated magnetic materials.

5 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Quantum ESPRESSO: a modular and open-source software project for quantum simulations of materials
• A New Type of Quantum Criticality in the Pyrochlore Iridates
• Quantum states of muons in fluorides
• Weak quasistatic magnetism in the frustrated Kondo lattice Pr_2Ir_2O_7

Cited by in corpus (22)

• Quantum spin liquid in the Ising triangular-lattice antiferromagnet neodymium heptatantalate
• Antiferro-quadrupolar correlations in the quantum spin ice candidate Pr2Zr2O7
• Physical properties of a candidate quantum spin-ice system Pr2Hf2O7
• DFT+μ: Density Functional Theory for Muon Site Determination
• Spin diffusion in the low-dimensional molecular quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet Cu(pyz)(NO${}_3$)${}_2$ detected with implanted muons
• Spin dynamics of the ordered dipolar-octupolar pseudospin-${}^1{/}_2$ pyrochlore Nd${}_2$Zr${}_2$O${}_7$ probed by muon spin relaxation
• MuFinder: A program to determine and analyse muon stopping sites
• Ubiquitous Spin Freezing in the Superconducting State of UTe2
• Gapless triangular-lattice spin-liquid candidate in PrZnAl${}_{11}$O${}_{19}$
• Muon spin relaxation and inelastic neutron scattering investigations of all-in/all-out antiferromagnet Nd2Hf2O7
• Intrinsic nature of spontaneous magnetic fields in superconductors with time-reversal symmetry breaking
• Quantum effects in muon spin spectroscopy within the stochastic self-consistent harmonic approximation
• Dynamic Spin Fluctuations in the Frustrated A-site Spinel CuAl2O4
• Excitation Spectrum and Spin Hamiltonian of the Frustrated Quantum Ising Magnet Pr${}_3$BWO${}_9$
• Understanding muon diffusion in perovskite oxides below room temperature based on harmonic transition state theory
• Spin dynamics in the Dirac $U(1)$ spin liquid YbZn${}_2$GaO${}_5$
• Unified description of resistivity and thermopower of Pr${}_2$Ir${}_2$O${}_7$: possible influence of crystal field excitation in a Kondo lattice
• Crystal field effects in the zig-zag chain compound SrTm${}_2$O${}_4$
• Beyond Single Tetrahedron Physics of Breathing Pyrochlore Compound Ba3Yb2Zn5O11
• Automated computational workflows for muon spin spectroscopy
• Hydrogen-impurity induced unconventional magnetism in semiconducting molybdenum ditelluride
• Disorder and Quantum spin ice