paper

Easy-plane multi- magnetic ground state of NaCoSbO

arXiv:2306.07175 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.109.L060410

Abstract

NaCoSbO is a potential Kitaev magnet with a monoclinic layered crystal structure. Recent investigations of the -symmetric sister compound NaCoTeO have uncovered a unique triple- magnetic ground state, as opposed to a single- (zigzag) one, prompting us to examine the influence of the reduced structural symmetry of NaCoSbO on its ground state. Neutron diffraction data obtained on a twin-free crystal reveal that the ground state remains a multi- state, despite the system's strong in-plane anisotropy. This robustness of multi- orders suggests that they are driven by a common mechanism in the honeycomb cobaltates, such as higher-order magnetic interactions. Spin-polarized neutron diffraction results show that the ordered moments are entirely in-plane, with each staggered component orthogonal to the propagating wave vector. The inferred ground state favors a so-called XXZ easy-plane anisotropic starting point for the microscopic model over a Kitaev one, and features unequal ordered moments reduced by strong quantum fluctuations.

4 pages, 4 figures, plus Supplemental Material

References in corpus (31)

Cited by in corpus (18)