Magnetic excitations in the spin chain candidate Sr2V3O9 have been investigated by inelastic neutron scattering on a single crystal sample. A spinon continuum with a bandwidth of ∼22 meV is observed along the chain formed by alternating magnetic V4+ and nonmagnetic V5+ ions. Incipient magnetic Bragg peaks due to weak ferromagnetic interchain couplings emerge when approaching the magnetic transition at TN∼5.3 K while the excitations remain gapless within the instrumental resolution. Comparisons to the Bethe ansatz, density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculations, and effective field theories confirm Sr2V3O9 as a host of weakly coupled S=1/2 chains dominated by antiferromagnetic intrachain interactions of ∼7.1(1) meV.
@article{arxiv.2307.12093,
title = {Spinon continuum in the Heisenberg quantum chain compound Sr$_2$V$_3$O$_9$},
author = {Shang Gao and Ling-Fang Lin and Pontus Laurell and Qiang Chen and Qing Huang and Clarina dela Cruz and Krishnamurthy V. Vemuru and Mark D. Lumsden and Stephen E. Nagler and Gonzalo Alvarez and Elbio Dagotto and Haidong Zhou and Andrew D. Christianson and Matthew B. Stone},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.12093},
year = {2024}
}