Signatures of a magnetic field-induced unconventional nematic liquid in the frustrated and anisotropic spin-chain cuprate LiCuSbO4

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Date
2017
Authors
Grafe, H.-J.
Nishimoto, S.
Iakovleva, M.
Vavilova, E.
Spillecke, L.
Alfonsov, A.
Sturza, M.-I.
Wurmehl, S.
Nojiri, H.
Rosner, H.
Volume
7
Issue
Journal
Scientific Reports
Series Titel
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Publisher
London : Nature Publishing Group
Abstract

Modern theories of quantum magnetism predict exotic multipolar states in weakly interacting strongly frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg chains with ferromagnetic nearest neighbor (NN) inchain exchange in high magnetic fields. Experimentally these states remained elusive so far. Here we report strong indications of a magnetic field-induced nematic liquid arising above a field of ~13 T in the edge-sharing chain cuprate LiSbCuO4 ≡ LiCuSbO4. This interpretation is based on the observation of a field induced spin-gap in the measurements of the 7Li NMR spin relaxation rate T1−1 as well as a contrasting field-dependent power-law behavior of T1−1 vs. T and is further supported by static magnetization and ESR data. An underlying theoretical microscopic approach favoring a nematic scenario is based essentially on the NN XYZ exchange anisotropy within a model for frustrated spin-1/2 chains and is investigated by the DMRG technique. The employed exchange parameters are justified qualitatively by electronic structure calculations for LiCuSbO4.

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CC BY 4.0 Unported