Entangled spin and orbital degrees of freedom provide a multiflavor route to novel magnetic states inaccessible in conventional spin systems. Here, we report the experimental identification of an emergent vortex lattice in the multiflavor pyrochlore-lattice compound GeCo2O4. By combining comprehensive neutron scattering experiments with a regularized regression framework, we identify substantial Kitaev interactions among the nearest-neighboring Co2+ pseudospins, which cooperate with geometric frustration to stabilize the vortex order. These results reveal an unexpected route to vortex-lattice order in a three-dimensional Kitaev-frustrated magnet and demonstrate a regularized protocol for Hamiltonian determination in frustrated quantum materials.
@article{arxiv.2605.12042,
title = {Emergent Vortex Ordering in a Multiflavor Pyrochlore-Lattice Compound GeCo$_2$O$_4$},
author = {Jiajun Mo and Otkur Omar and Shuangkui Guang and Kazuki Iida and Kazuya Kamazawa and Fabio Orlandi and Wenyun Yang and Xiaobai Ma and Xiquan Zheng and Yingying Peng and Yuan Xiao and Shunhong Zhang and Oksana Zaharko and Xuefeng Sun and Shang Gao},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.12042},
year = {2026}
}