When opposites repel: from metastability to extended chiral spin textures in spin ice with short-range topological-defect interactions

Abstract

We study the interplay of topological bottlenecks and energetic barriers to equilibration in a Coulomb spin liquid where a short-range energetic coupling between defects charged under an emergent gauge field supplements their entropic long-range Coulomb interaction. This work is motivated by the prevalence of memory effects observed across a wide range of geometrically frustrated magnetic materials, possibly including the spontaneous Hall effect observed in Pr2Ir2O7. Our model is canonical spin-ice model on the pyrochlore lattice, where farther-neighbour spin couplings give rise to a nearest-neighbor interaction between topological defects which can easily be chosen to be unnatural or not, i.e. attractive or repulsive between defects of equal gauge charge. Among the novel features of this model are the following. After applying a field quench, a rich dynamical approach to equilibrium emerges, dominated by multi-scale energy barriers responsible for long-lived magnetization plateaux. These even allow for the metastability of a "fragmented" spin liquid, an elusive regime where partial order co-exists with a spin liquid. Perhaps most strikingly, the attraction produces clusters of defects whose stability is due to a combination of energetic barriers for their break-up and proximity of opposite charges along with an entropic barrier generated by the topological requirement of annihilating a defect only together with an oppositely charged counterpart. These clusters may take the form of a "jellyfish" spin texture, comprising an arrangement of same-sign gauge-charges, centered on a hexagonal ring with branches of arbitrary length. The ring carries a clockwise or counterclockwise circular flow of magnetisation. This emergent toroidal degrees of freedom provides a possibility for time reversal symmetry breaking with possible relevance to the spontaneous Hall effect observed in Pr2Ir2O7.

27 pages, 31 figures

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Cited by in corpus (31)

• Competing magnetic orders and spin liquids in two- and three-dimensional kagome systems: A pseudo-fermion functional renormalization group perspective
• Fragmentation in Frustrated Magnets -- A review
• Pinch-points to half-moons and up in the stars: the kagome skymap
• Magnetic clustering, half-moons, and shadow pinch points as signals of a proximate Coulomb phase in frustrated Heisenberg magnets
• Clustering of Topological Charges in a Kagome Classical Spin Liquid
• Half moons are pinch points with dispersion
• Theory of Ca${}_{10}$Cr${}_7$O${}_{28}$ as a bilayer breathing-kagome magnet: Classical thermodynamics and semi-classical dynamics
• How many spin liquids are there in Ca${}_{10}$Cr${}_7$O${}_{28}$?
• Skyrmion fluid and bimeron glass protected by a chiral spin liquid on a kagome lattice
• Common Glass-Forming Spin-Liquid State in the Pyrochlore Magnets Dy${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$ and Ho${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$
• Spectrum of itinerant fractional excitations in quantum spin ice
• Charge and spin correlations in the Monopole Liquid
• Probing Flat Band Physics in Spin Ice Systems via Polarized Neutron Scattering
• The Polarized Monopole Liquid: a Coulomb phase in a fluid of magnetic charges
• Schwinger boson theory of the J1,J2=J3 kagome antiferromagnet
• The Classical Heisenberg Model on the Centred Pyrochlore Lattice
• Field-selective classical spin liquid and magnetization plateaus on kagome lattice
• Trimer classical spin liquid from interacting fractional charges
• Supercooled Jahn-Teller Ice
• Hidden phases born of a quantum spin liquid: Application to pyrochlore spin ice
• Pinch points and half-moons in dipolar-octupolar Nd${}_2$Hf${}_2$O${}_7$
• Neutron scattering from fragmented frustrated magnets
• Perfectly hidden order and Z2 confinement transition in a fully packed monopole liquid
• Monte Carlo study on the detection of classical order by disorder in real antiferromagnetic Ising pyrochlores
• Human-machine collaboration: ordering mechanism of rank-2 spin liquid on breathing pyrochlore lattice
• Pinch-point spectral singularity from the interference of topological loop states
• Emergent Snake Magnetic Domains in Canted Kagome Ice
• Flux roughening in spin ice with mixed $\pm J$ interactions
• Spinor ice correlation in flat-band electronic states on kagome and pyrochlore lattices with spin-orbit coupling
• Random Transverse Field Effects on Magnetic Noise in Spin Systems
• Methods for detecting Order-by-Disorder transitions: the example of the Domino model