Kai Phillip Schmidt

Observation of Two-Magnon Bound States in the Two-Leg Ladders of (Ca, La)14Cu24O41

Phonon-assisted two-magnon absorption is studied in the spin- 1/2 two-leg ladders of (Ca,La)(14)Cu(24)O(41) for E parallel c (legs) and E parallel a (rungs). We verify the theoretically predicted existence of two-magnon singlet bound states, which give rise to peaks at approximately equal to 2140 and 2800 cm(-1). The two-magnon continuum is observed at approximately equal to 4000 cm(-1). Two different theoretical approaches (Jordan-Wigner fermions and perturbation theory) describe the data very well for J parallel approximately equal to 1020-1100 cm(-1), J parallel/J perpendicular approximately equal to 1-1.2. At high energies, the magnetic contribution to sigma(omega) is strikingly similar in the ladders and in the undoped high-T(c) cuprates, which emphasizes the importance of strong quantum fluctuations in the latter.

Raman response in antiferromagnetic two-leg S = 1/2 Heisenberg ladders

The Raman response in the antiferromagnetic 2-leg S = 1/2 Heisenberg ladder is calculated for various couplings by continuous unitary transformations. For leg couplings above 80% of the rung coupling a characteristic 2-peak structure occurs with a point of zero intensity within the continuum. Experimental data for CaV2O5 and La y Ca 14 − y Cu24O41 are analyzed and the coupling constants are determined. Evidence is found that the Heisenberg model is not sufficient to describe cuprate ladders. We argue that a cyclic exchange term is the appropriate extension.

Field-induced Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid phase of a two-leg spin-1/2 ladder with strong leg interactions

We study the magnetic-field-induced quantum phase transition from a gapped quantum phase that has no magnetic long-range order into a gapless phase in the spin-1/2 ladder compound bis(2,3-dimethylpyridinium) tetrabromocuprate (DIMPY). At temperatures below about 1 K, the specific heat in the gapless phase attains an asymptotic linear temperature dependence, characteristic of a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid. Inelastic neutron scattering and the specific heat measurements in both phases are in good agreement with theoretical calculations, demonstrating that DIMPY is the first model material for an S=1/2 two-leg spin ladder in the strong-leg regime.

Unifying magnons and triplons in stripe-ordered cuprate superconductors.

Based on a two-dimensional model of coupled two-leg spin ladders, we derive a unified picture of recent neutron scattering data of stripe-ordered La15/8Ba1/8CuO4, namely, of the low-energy magnons around the superstructure satellites and of the triplon excitations at higher energies. The resonance peak at the antiferromagnetic wave vector Q(AF) in the stripe-ordered phase corresponds to a saddle point in the dispersion of the magnetic excitations. Quantitative agreement with the neutron data is obtained for J=130-160 meV and Jcyc/J=0.2-0.25.

Excitations in one-dimensional S = 1/2 quantum antiferromagnets.

The transition from dimerized to uniform phases is studied in terms of spectral weights for spin chains using continuous unitary transformations. The spectral weights in the S=1 channel are computed perturbatively around the limit of strong dimerization. We find that the spectral weight is concentrated mainly in the subspaces with a small number of elementary triplets (triplons), even for vanishing dimerization. So, besides spinons, triplons may be used as elementary excitations in spin chains. We conclude that there is no necessity to use fractional excitations in low-dimensional, undoped, or doped quantum antiferromagnets.

One- and two-triplon spectra of a cuprate ladder.

We have performed inelastic neutron scattering on the near ideal spin-ladder compound La4Sr10Cu24O41 as a starting point for investigating doped ladders and their tendency toward superconductivity. A key feature was the separation of one-triplon and two-triplon scattering. Two-triplon scattering is observed quantitatively for the first time and so access is realized to the important strong magnetic quantum fluctuations. The spin gap is found to be 26.4+/-0.3 meV. The data are successfully modeled using the continuous unitary transformation method, and the exchange constants are determined by fitting to be Jleg=186 meV and Jrung=124 meV along the leg and rung, respectively; a substantial cyclic exchange of Jcyc=31 meV is confirmed.

Robustness of a perturbed topological phase

We investigate the stability of the topological phase of the toric code model in the presence of a uniform magnetic field by means of variational and high-order series expansion approaches. We find that when this perturbation is strong enough, the system undergoes a topological phase transition whose first- or second-order nature depends on the field orientation. When this transition is of second order, it is in the Ising universality class except for a special line on which the critical exponent driving the closure of the gap varies continuously, unveiling a new topological universality class.

Creation and Manipulation of Anyons in the Kitaev Model

We analyze the effect of local spin operators in the Kitaev model on the honeycomb lattice. We show, in perturbation around the isolated-dimer limit, that they create Abelian anyons together with fermionic excitations which are likely to play a role in experiments. We derive the explicit form of the operators creating and moving Abelian anyons without creating fermions and show that it involves multispin operations. Finally, the important experimental constraints stemming from our results are discussed.

Effective spin model for the spin-liquid phase of the Hubbard model on the triangular lattice

We show that the spin-liquid phase of the half-filled Hubbard model on the triangular lattice can be described by a pure spin model. This is based on a high-order strong coupling expansion (up to order 12) using perturbative continuous unitary transformations. The resulting spin model is consistent with a transition from three-sublattice long-range magnetic order to an insulating spin-liquid phase, and with a jump of the double occupancy at the transition. Exact diagonalizations of both models show that the effective spin model is quantitatively accurate well into the spin-liquid phase, and a comparison with the Gutzwiller projected Fermi sea suggests a gapless spectrum and a spinon Fermi surface.

Theory of magnetization plateaux in the Shastry-Sutherland model.

Motivated by the remarkable properties of SrCu2(BO3) 2 in a magnetic field, we use perturbative continuous unitary transformations to determine the magnetization plateaux of the Shastry-Sutherland model, unveiling an unexpected sequence of plateaux progressively appearing at 2/9, 1/6, 1/9, and 2/15 upon increasing the interdimer coupling. We predict that a 1/6 plateau should be present in SrCu2(BO3)2, even if residual interactions beyond the Shastry-Sutherland are strong enough to modify the other plateaux below 1/3. The method is extended to calculate the magnetization profile within the plateaux, leading to a local structure around triplons that agrees with NMR results on SrCu2(BO3) 2.