The ground state of a quantum critical system
Abstract
The competition between the tendency of magnetic moments to order at low temperatures, and the tendency of conduction electrons to shield these moments, can result in a phase transition that takes place at zero Kelvin, the quantum critical point (QCP). So far, the ground state of these types of systems has remained unresolved. We present neutron scattering experiments that show that the ground state of a sample representative of a class of QCP-systems is determined by the residual interactions between the conduction electrons, resulting in a state with incommensurate intermediate-range order. However, long-range order is thwarted by quantum fluctuations that locally destroy magnetic moments, leaving the system with too few moments to achieve long-range order.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0606703,
title = {The ground state of a quantum critical system},
author = {Wouter Montfrooij and Jagat Lamsal and Meigan Aronson and Marcus Bennett and Anne de Visser and Huang Ying Kai and Nguyen Thanh Huy and Mohana Yethiraj and Mark Lumsden and Yiming Qiu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0606703},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
20 pages, including supplemetal material. The main results will be submitted to PRL, while the transport data will be further worked out by Nguyen Thanh Huy and submitted separately