Low dimensional quantum magnets are interesting because of the emerging collective behavior arising from strong quantum fluctuations. The one-dimensional (1D) S = 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet is a paradigmatic example, whose low-energy excitations, known as spinons, carry fractional spin S = 1/2. These fractional modes can be reconfined by the application of a staggered magnetic field. Even though considerable progress has been made in the theoretical understanding of such magnets, experimental realizations of this low-dimensional physics are relatively rare. This is particularly true for rare-earth based magnets because of the large effective spin anisotropy induced by the combination of strong spin-orbit coupling and crystal field splitting. Here, we demonstrate that the rare-earth perovskite YbAlO3 provides a realization of a quantum spin S = 1/2 chain material exhibiting both quantum critical Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid behavior and spinon confinement-deconfinement transitions in different regions of magnetic field-temperature phase diagram.
@article{arxiv.1902.04112,
title = {Tomonaga-Luttinger Liquid Behavior and Spinon Confinement in YbAlO$_3$},
author = {L. S. Wu and S. E. Nikitin and Z. Wang and W. Zhu and C. D. Batista and A. M. Tsvelik and A. M. Samarakoon and D. A. Tennant and M. Brando and L. Vasylechko and M. Frontzek and A. T. Savici and G. Sala and G. Ehlers and A. D. Christianson and M. D. Lumsden and A. Podlesnyak},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.04112},
year = {2019}
}