Gapless Spin Excitations in the Field-Induced Quantum Spin Liquid Phase of alpha-RuCl3

Jiacheng Zheng; Kejing Ran; Tianrun Li; Jinghui Wang; Pengshuai Wang; Bin Liu; Zhengxin Liu; B. Normand; Jinsheng Wen; Weiqiang Yu

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.227208

Gapless Spin Excitations in the Field-Induced Quantum Spin Liquid Phase of alpha-RuCl3

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2017-12-12 v6

Authors: Jiacheng Zheng , Kejing Ran , Tianrun Li , Jinghui Wang , Pengshuai Wang , Bin Liu , Zhengxin Liu , B. Normand , Jinsheng Wen , Weiqiang Yu

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Abstract

$\alpha$ -RuCl $_3$ is a leading candidate material for theobservation of physics related to the Kitaev quantum spin liquid (QSL). By combined susceptibility, specific-heat, and nuclear-magnetic-resonance measurements, we demonstrate that $\alpha$ -RuCl $_3$ undergoes a quantum phase transition to a QSL in a magnetic field of 7.5 T applied in the $ab$ plane. We show further that this high-field QSL phase has gapless spin excitations over a field range up to 16 T. This highly unconventional result, unknown in either Heisenberg or Kitaev magnets, offers insight essential to establishing the physics of $\alpha$ -RuCl $_3$ .

Keywords

quantum spin liquid (QSL) alpha-RuCl3 Kitaev model gapless spin excitations field-induced quantum phase transition nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) strongly correlated electrons

Cite

@article{arxiv.1703.08474,
  title  = {Gapless Spin Excitations in the Field-Induced Quantum Spin Liquid Phase of alpha-RuCl3},
  author = {Jiacheng Zheng and Kejing Ran and Tianrun Li and Jinghui Wang and Pengshuai Wang and Bin Liu and Zhengxin Liu and B. Normand and Jinsheng Wen and Weiqiang Yu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.08474},
  year   = {2017}
}

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6 pages, 4 figures. 1 supplemental materials upon request or available in PRL journal website

Gapless Spin Excitations in the Field-Induced Quantum Spin Liquid Phase of alpha-RuCl3

Abstract

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