arXiv subjects

Matthew Stern

Publications and source records attributed to Matthew Stern.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Fracton Spin Liquid and Exotic Frustrated Phases in Ising-like Octochlore Magnets

For nearly three decades, research on frustrated magnetism in three dimensions (3D) has centered on the pyrochlore lattice of corner-sharing tetrahedra and the classical spin liquid (CSL) known as spin ice. We propose that a lattice of corner-sharing octahedra -- the octochlore lattice -- may provide a next-generation platform for 3D frustrated magnetism, with realizations in anti-perovskite and alkali-rare-earth fluoride compounds. We study the phase diagram of Ising moments on the octochlore lattice, finding a variety of frustrated phases including CSLs and phases with subextensive ground state degeneracy intermediate between spin liquids and long-range order. Utilizing a cluster multipole framework, we present a unified treatment of this variety of frustrated behaviors. In addition to a spin ice CSL, we identify a fracton CSL with excitations restricted to move along one-dimensional (1D) lines, a classical U(1) equivalent of the paradigmatic X-cube model harboring fracton topological order. These "lineon" quasiparticles carry magnetic quadrupole moments, contrasting the famous magnetic monopoles of spin ice. These two CSLs lie at the boundaries of a parent "frustrated chains" phase with subextensive degeneracy. Each CSL corresponds to a condensate of different bound states of 1D ferro-spinons, giving rise to quasi-critical dimensional crossovers near the ends of the frustrated chains phase associated to avoided Kasteleyn-like transitions. We also find a spin nematic phase whose ground states may be viewed as fracton crystals, exhibiting both uniaxial and biaxial orders. The latter is caused by spontaneous dimensional reduction owing to accidental symmetries of the subextensive ground state manifold. This work paves the way for the realization of fracton CSLs and the exploration of other exotic states in underexplored octochlore magnetic materials.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2025

Triplet nodal lines and Chern bands in XCuCl$_{3}$ (X= K, Tl)

We investigate the symmetry-enforced line nodes of the triplet excitations of XCuCl$_{3}$ (X= K, Tl), showing that they are protected by the nonsymmorphic symmetries and are unaffected by the microscopic details, such as interaction and anisotropy strength, as long as the ground state and the symmetry group remain unaltered. Extending the conventionally used isotropic spin model for XCuCl$_{3}$, our analysis includes all the symmetry-allowed anisotropies and gives a detailed account of the role they play in the band topology of triplets. We show that the triplet line nodes carry nontrivial Berry phases and compute their $Z_2$ topological indices. To investigate the effect of breaking the nonsymmorphic symmetry protecting the triplet nodes, we apply a magnetic field tilted away from the high symmetry $(010)$ axis. We find that while the g-tensor anisotropy behaves as a trivial mass gapping out the triplets, exchange anisotropies supply a nontrivial momentum-dependent mass term. Analogous to Haldane's original model, the competition of these mass terms determines the nature of the band topology in XCuCl$_{3}$. To enable an analytic study of the band topology we derive an effective Dirac Hamiltonian and validate it by computing the band structure and topological indices in the nodal line and gapped phases from the linear bond-wave formalism.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Quantum percolation of monopole paths and the response of quantum spin ice

We consider quantum spin ice in a temperature regime in which its response is dominated by the coherent motion of a dilute gas of monopoles. The hopping amplitude of a monopole is sensitive to the configuration of its surrounding spins, taken to be quasi-static on the relevant timescales. This leads to well-known blocked directions in the monopole motion; we find that these are sufficient to reduce the coherent propagation of monopoles to quantum diffusion. This result is robust against disorder, as a direct consequence of the ground-state degeneracy, which disrupts the quantum interference processes needed for weak localization. Moreover, recent work [Tomasello et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 067204 (2019)] has shown that the monopole hopping amplitudes are roughly bimodal: for $\approx 1/3$ of the flippable spins surrounding a monopole, these amplitudes are extremely small. We exploit this structure to construct a theory of quantum monopole motion in spin ice. In the limit where the slow hopping terms are set to zero, the monopole wavefunctions appear to be fractal; we explain this observation via a mapping to quantum percolation on trees. The fractal, non-ergodic nature of monopole wavefunctions manifests itself in the low-frequency behavior of monopole spectral functions, and is consistent with experimental observations.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗