Karl Kraemer | Searcharxiv

arXiv2009

U(1)-Symmetry breaking and violation of axial symmetry in TlCuCl3 and other insulating spin systems

We describe the Bose-Einstein condensate of magnetic bosonic quasiparticles in insulating spin systems using a phenomenological standard functional method for T = 0. We show that results that are already known from advanced computational techniques immediately follow. The inclusion of a perturbative anisotropy term that violates the axial symmetry allows us to remarkably well explain a number of experimental features of the dimerized spin-1/2 system TlCuCl3. Based on an energetic argument we predict a general intrinsic instability of an axially symmetric magnetic condensate towards a violation of this symmetry, which leads to the spontaneous formation of an anisotropy gap in the energy spectrum above the critical field. We, therefore, expect that a true Goldstone mode in insulating spin systems, i.e., a strictly linear energy-dispersion relation down to arbitrarily small excitations energies, cannot be observed in any real material.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2008

Spin-spin correlations of the spin-ladder compound (C$_5$H$_{12}$N)$_2$CuBr$_4$ measured by magnetostriction and comparison to Quantum Monte Carlo results

Magnetostriction and thermal expansion of the spin-ladder compound piperidinium copper bromide (C$_5$H$_{12}$N)$_2$CuBr$_4$ are analyzed in detail. We find perfect agreement between experiments and the theory of a two-leg spin ladder Hamiltonian for more than a decade in temperature and in a wide range of magnetic fields. Relating the magnetostriction along different crystallographic directions to two static spin-spin correlation functions, which we compute with Quantum Monte Carlo, allows us to reconstruct the magnetoelastic couplings of (C$_5$H$_{12}$N)$_2$CuBr$_4$. We especially focus on the quantum critical behavior near the two critical magnetic fields $H_{c1}$ and $H_{c2}$, which is characterized by strong singularities rooted in the low dimensionality of the critical spin-system. Extending our discussion in Lorenz et al [Phys. Rev. Lett., 100, 067208 (2008)], we show explicitly that the thermal expansion near the upper critical field $H_{c2}$ is quantitatively described by a parameter-free theory of one-dimensional, non-relativistic Fermions. We also point out that there exists a singular quantum critical correction to the elastic moduli. This correction is proportional to the magnetic susceptibility $χ$ which diverges as $χ\sim 1/\sqrt{T}$ at the critical fields and thus leads to a strong softening of the crystal.

cond-mat.str-el↗