English

Collective spinon spin wave in a magnetized U(1) spin liquid

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2020-01-15 v2

Abstract

We study the transverse dynamical spin susceptibility of the two dimensional U(1) spinon Fermi surface spin liquid in a small applied Zeeman field. We show that both short-range interactions, present in a generic Fermi liquid, as well as gauge fluctuations, characteristic of the U(1) spin liquid, qualitatively change the result based on the frequently assumed non-interacting spinon approximation. Short-range interaction leads to a new collective mode: a "spinon spin wave" which splits off from the two-spinon continuum at small momentum and disperses downward. Gauge fluctuations renormalize the susceptibility, providing non-zero power law weight in the region outside the spinon continuum and giving the spin wave a finite lifetime, which scales as momentum squared. We also study the effect of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya anisotropy on the zero momentum susceptibility, which is measured in electron spin resonance (ESR), and obtain a resonance linewidth linear in temperature and varying as B2/3B^{2/3} with magnetic field BB at low temperature. Our results form the basis for a theory of inelastic neutrons scattering, ESR, and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) studies of this quantum spin liquid state.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1904.02117,
  title  = {Collective spinon spin wave in a magnetized U(1) spin liquid},
  author = {Leon Balents and Oleg A. Starykh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.02117},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

v2: published and updated version with much improved Supplemental Materials, 5+12 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T08:28:24.329Z