NMR study of the spin excitations in the frustrated antiferromagnet Yb(BaBO${}_3$)${}_3$ with a triangular lattice

Abstract

In this paper, we study the spin excitation properties of the frustrated triangular-lattice antiferromagnet Yb(BaBO${}_3$)${}_3$ with nuclear magnetic resonance. From the spectral analysis, neither magnetic ordering nor spin freezing is observed with temperature down to $T=0.26$ K, far below its Curie-Weiss temperature $|\hat{I}{¸}_w|\sim 2.3$ K. From the nuclear relaxation measurement, precise temperature-independent spin-lattice relaxation rates are observed at low temperatures under a weak magnetic field, indicating the gapless spin excitations. Further increasing the field intensity, we observe a spin excitation gap with the gap size proportional to the field intensity. These phenomena suggest a very unusual strongly correlated quantum disordered phase, and the implications for the quantum spin liquid state are further discussed.

6 pages, 6 figures. Supplemental materials available upon request