Quantum spin ice is an appealing proposal of a quantum spin liquid - systems where the magnetic moments of the constituent electron spins evade classical long-range order to form an exotic state that is quantum entangled and coherent over macroscopic length scales. Such phases are at the edge of our current knowledge in condensed matter as they go beyond the established paradigm of symmetry-breaking order and associated excitations. Neutron scattering experiments on the pyrochlore material Pr2Hf2O7 reveal signatures of a quantum spin ice state that were predicted by theory.
@article{arxiv.1911.00968,
title = {Neutron scattering signatures of a quantum spin ice},
author = {Romain Sibille and Nicolas Gauthier and Han Yan and Monica Ciomaga Hatnean and Jacques Ollivier and Barry Winn and Uwe Filges and Geetha Balakrishnan and Michel Kenzelmann and Nic Shannon and Tom Fennell},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.00968},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
Article in Swiss Neutron News, after R. Sibille et al. Nature Physics 14, 711- 715 (2018). https://sgn.web.psi.ch/sgn/snn.html