Quantum Spin Liquids Stabilized by Disorder in Non-Kramers Pyrochlores

Abstract

We investigate the emergence of quantum spin liquid phases in pyrochlore oxides with non-Kramers ions, in which structural randomness effectively acts as a transverse field, introducing quantum fluctuations on top of the spin ice manifold. This is contrary to the naive expectation that disorder favors phases with short-range entanglement by adjusting the spins with their local environment. We study a minimal model for a disordered quantum spin ice, the transverse-field Ising model, using a real-space formulation of the gauge mean-field theory. This approach allows the inclusion of non-perturbative disorder effects exactly, and thus to assess the stability of the spin-liquid phase with respect to the disorder. The analysis shows that the quantum spin ice remains remarkably stable with respect to disorder up to the transition to the polarized phase at high fields, indicating that it can occur in real materials. A Griffiths region of enhanced disorder-induced fluctuations is restricted to the immediate vicinity of this transition due to the peculiar nature of the low-energy excitations of the problem. For most of the phase diagram, an average description of the disorder captures the physical behavior well, indicating that the inhomogeneous quantum spin ice behaves closely to its homogeneous counterpart.

arXiv comment9 pages, 6 figures. Contribution to the Annalen der Physik, Collection: Advances in Strongly Correlated Systems

References in corpus (50)

• Localization of interacting fermions at high temperature
• Magnetic Monopoles in Spin Ice
• Magnetic Pyrochlore Oxides
• The distribution of the ratio of consecutive level spacings in random matrix ensembles
• Dirac Strings and Magnetic Monopoles in Spin Ice Dy2Ti2O7
• Quantum Excitations in Quantum Spin Ice
• Strong disorder RG approach of random systems
• Signature of magnetic monopole and Dirac string dynamics in spin ice
• On the stability of U(1) spin liquids in two dimensions
• Coulombic Quantum Liquids in Spin-1/2 Pyrochlores
• Seeing the light : experimental signatures of emergent electromagnetism in a quantum spin ice
• Valence Bonds in Random Quantum Magnets: Theory and Application to YbMgGaO4
• Definitive Evidence for Order-by-Quantum-Disorder in Er2Ti2O7
• Theoretical Studies of Superconductor-Insulator Transitions
• Quantum Ice : a quantum Monte Carlo study
• Quantum order by disorder and accidental soft mode Er2Ti2O7
• Anderson localisation in tight-binding models with flat bands
• Disorder-Induced Entanglement in Spin Ice Pyrochlores
• Theory of multiple--phase competition in pyrochlore magnets with anisotropic exchange, with application to Yb2Ti2O7, Er2Ti2O7 and Er2Sn2O7
• Living on the edge : ground-state selection in quantum spin-ice pyrochlores
• Spin Freezing in Geometrically Frustrated Antiferromagnets with Weak Disorder
• Disordered Route to the Coulomb Quantum Spin Liquid: Random Transverse Fields on Spin Ice in Pr${}_2$Zr${}_2$O${}_7$
• Spin glass transition in geometrically frustrated antiferromagnets with weak disorder
• Infinite disorder scaling of random quantum magnets in three and higher dimensions
• Criticality and quenched disorder: rare regions vs. Harris criterion
• A spin liquid with pinch-line singularities on the pyrochlore lattice
• Valence bond crystal in a pyrochlore antiferromagnet with orbital degeneracy
• Anderson localization of phonons in dimension $d=1,2,3$ : finite-size properties of the Inverse Participation Ratios of eigenstates
• Electronic Griffiths phase of the d=2 Mott transition
• Dirac's "magnetic monopole" in pyrochlore ice U(1) spin liquids: Spectrum and classification
• Order from structural disorder in $XY$ pyrochlore antiferromagnet $\mathrm{E}{\mathrm{r}}_2\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{i}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_7$
• Cluster-glass phase in pyrochlore XY antiferromagnets with quenched disorder
• Instabilities of a U(1) quantum spin liquid in disordered non-Kramers pyrochlores
• Bose glass transition and spin-wave localization for 2D bosons in a random potential
• Magnon interactions in the frustrated pyrochlore ferromagnet Yb${}_2$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$
• Excitation spectra of disordered dimer magnets near quantum criticality
• Spin liquid and quantum phase transition without symmetry breaking in a frustrated three-dimensional Ising model
• Order Induced by Dilution in Pyrochlore XY Antiferromagnets
• Symmetry fractionalization in the gauge mean-field theory of quantum spin ice
• Abundance of hard-hexagon crystals in the quantum pyrochlore antiferromagnet
• Spin freezing in the disordered pyrochlore magnet NaCaCo${}_2$F${}_7$: NMR studies and Monte-Carlo simulations
• Disorder, cluster spin glass, and hour-glass spectra in striped magnetic insulators
• Spectroscopic signatures of fractionalization in octupolar quantum spin ice
• Competing Gauge Fields and Entropically-Driven Spin Liquid to Spin Liquid Transition in non-Kramers Pyrochlores
• The phase diagram of a frustrated Heisenberg model: from disorder to order and back again
• Monte Carlo study of the discontinuous quantum phase transition in the transverse-field Ising model on the pyrochlore lattice
• Collective modes at a disordered quantum phase transition
• Inhomogeneous mean-field approach to collective excitations in disordered interacting bosons
• Peering into the darkness: vison-generated photon mass in quantum spin ice
• Confinement, reduced entanglement, and spin-glass order in a random quantum spin-ice model

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Influence of controlled disorder on the dipolar spin ice state of Ho-based pyrochlores