Controlling effective dimensionality and competition between spin liquid and chiral orders by new multiorbital effects in $S=\frac{1}{2}$ pyrochlore oxides

Abstract

In frustrated systems, some or many states are competed due to frustration of exchange interactions, and this competition often results in exotic states, such as spin liquid and chiral orders. We consider a pyrochlore oxide, a three-dimensional frustrated system, and study its $S=\frac{1}{2}$ effective model, consisting of the Heisenberg-type and Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya-type superexchange interactions between the nearest-neighbor transition-metal ions. We show that by using new multiorbital effects of the $t_{2g}$ orbitals on coefficients of those interactions, we can change the effective dimensionality from three-dimensional to two-dimensional, and control the competition between chiral orders and spin liquid. We also show that the new multiorbital effects are vital to stabilize three-in-one-out chiral order, distorted four-in-four-out chiral order, and distorted three-in-one-out chiral order, and can be used to hold macroscopic degeneracy, resulting in the spin liquid, even with the finite Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interactions. Those results open up new multiorbital physics in spin systems, and make the essential step for the realistic mechanism for the spin liquid in pyrochlore oxides.