Origin of the hidden energy scale and the $f$-ratio in geometrically frustrated magnets

Abstract

Sufficiently clean geometrically frustrated (GF) magnets are the largest class of candidate materials that may host quantum spin liquids (QSLs). Some of them have been shown to exhibit spin-glass freezing, potentially precluding QSLs, at the "hidden energy scale", which is significantly lower than the microscopic energy scale of spin interactions. Here, we investigate the origin of the hidden energy scale and its relationship to the $f$-ratio, the figure of merit for the degree of frustration in GF magnetic materials. The available experimental and numerical data provide evidence that GF magnets display, universally, two distinct temperature scales in the specific heat, the lowest of which is of the order of the hidden energy scale $T^{\ast }$. We argue that this scale is determined by non-magnetic excitations, similar to spin exchanges in chains of spins. The collective entropy of such excitations matches the entropy of the ground states of the Ising model on the same lattice, which provides a way to verify the proposed scenario in experiment. We demonstrate that in the presence of quenched disorder, a broad class of materials exhibits spin-glass freezing at temperatures of order $T^{\ast }$, in accordance with experimental observations. As $T^{\ast }$ is a property of the clean GF medium, it leads to a constraint on the $f$-ratio.

4.5+4.5 pages, 2+2 figures, 2 tables

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• Thermodynamics of the Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the maple-leaf lattice
• Quantum spin liquid ground state with the evidence of roton-like excitations at elevated temperatures in the triangular-lattice delafossite YbCuSe${}_2$
• Multistage spin correlations in the $s$ = 1/2 stuffed hyper-star lattice Li${}_2$Cu${}_2$(MoO${}_4$)${}_3$
• Three-dimensional unfrustrated and frustrated quantum Heisenberg magnets. Specific heat study
• Suppression of Thermal Conductivity via Singlet-Dominated Scattering in TmFeO${}_3$
• Multistage development of short-range spin correlations and weak magnetic order in the two coupled trillium lattices of K2Fe2(MoO4)(PO4)2