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arXiv · 2112.11327

Spiral spin-liquid on a honeycomb lattice

Shang Gao·Michael A. McGuire·Yaohua Liu·Douglas L. Abernathy·Clarina dela Cruz·Matthias Frontzek·Matthew B. Stone·Andrew D. Christianson
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Abstract

Spiral spin-liquids are correlated paramagnetic states with degenerate propagation vectors forming a continuous ring or surface in reciprocal space. On the honeycomb lattice, spiral spin-liquids present a novel route to realize emergent fracton excitations, quantum spin liquids, and topological spin textures, yet experimental realizations remain elusive. Here, using neutron scattering, we show that a spiral spin-liquid is realized in the van der Waals honeycomb magnet FeCl$_3$. A continuous ring of scattering is directly observed, which indicates the emergence of an approximate U(1) symmetry in momentum space. Our work demonstrates that spiral spin-liquids can be achieved in two-dimensional systems and provides a promising platform to study the fracton physics in spiral spin-liquids.

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Shang Gao, Michael A. McGuire, Yaohua Liu, Douglas L. Abernathy, Clarina dela Cruz, Matthias Frontzek, Matthew B. Stone, Andrew D. Christianson. 2021-12-21. Spiral spin-liquid on a honeycomb lattice. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.128.227201

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