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Giant phonon anomalies in the proximate Kitaev quantum spin liquid α-RuCl(3)

The Kitaev quantum spin liquid epitomizes an entangled topological state, for which two flavors of fractionalized low-energy excitations are predicted: the itinerant Majorana fermion and the Z(2) gauge flux. It was proposed recently that fingerprints of fractional excitations are encoded in the phon...

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Autores principales: Li, Haoxiang, Zhang, T. T., Said, A., Fabbris, G., Mazzone, D. G., Yan, J. Q., Mandrus, D., Halász, Gábor B., Okamoto, S., Murakami, S., Dean, M. P. M., Lee, H. N., Miao, H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8192767/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34112804
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23826-1
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author Li, Haoxiang
Zhang, T. T.
Said, A.
Fabbris, G.
Mazzone, D. G.
Yan, J. Q.
Mandrus, D.
Halász, Gábor B.
Okamoto, S.
Murakami, S.
Dean, M. P. M.
Lee, H. N.
Miao, H.
author_facet Li, Haoxiang
Zhang, T. T.
Said, A.
Fabbris, G.
Mazzone, D. G.
Yan, J. Q.
Mandrus, D.
Halász, Gábor B.
Okamoto, S.
Murakami, S.
Dean, M. P. M.
Lee, H. N.
Miao, H.
author_sort Li, Haoxiang
collection PubMed
description The Kitaev quantum spin liquid epitomizes an entangled topological state, for which two flavors of fractionalized low-energy excitations are predicted: the itinerant Majorana fermion and the Z(2) gauge flux. It was proposed recently that fingerprints of fractional excitations are encoded in the phonon spectra of Kitaev quantum spin liquids through a novel fractional-excitation-phonon coupling. Here, we detect anomalous phonon effects in α-RuCl(3) using inelastic X-ray scattering with meV resolution. At high temperature, we discover interlaced optical phonons intercepting a transverse acoustic phonon between 3 and 7 meV. Upon decreasing temperature, the optical phonons display a large intensity enhancement near the Kitaev energy, J(K)~8 meV, that coincides with a giant acoustic phonon softening near the Z(2) gauge flux energy scale. These phonon anomalies signify the coupling of phonon and Kitaev magnetic excitations in α-RuCl(3) and demonstrates a proof-of-principle method to detect anomalous excitations in topological quantum materials.
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spelling pubmed-81927672021-06-17 Giant phonon anomalies in the proximate Kitaev quantum spin liquid α-RuCl(3) Li, Haoxiang Zhang, T. T. Said, A. Fabbris, G. Mazzone, D. G. Yan, J. Q. Mandrus, D. Halász, Gábor B. Okamoto, S. Murakami, S. Dean, M. P. M. Lee, H. N. Miao, H. Nat Commun Article The Kitaev quantum spin liquid epitomizes an entangled topological state, for which two flavors of fractionalized low-energy excitations are predicted: the itinerant Majorana fermion and the Z(2) gauge flux. It was proposed recently that fingerprints of fractional excitations are encoded in the phonon spectra of Kitaev quantum spin liquids through a novel fractional-excitation-phonon coupling. Here, we detect anomalous phonon effects in α-RuCl(3) using inelastic X-ray scattering with meV resolution. At high temperature, we discover interlaced optical phonons intercepting a transverse acoustic phonon between 3 and 7 meV. Upon decreasing temperature, the optical phonons display a large intensity enhancement near the Kitaev energy, J(K)~8 meV, that coincides with a giant acoustic phonon softening near the Z(2) gauge flux energy scale. These phonon anomalies signify the coupling of phonon and Kitaev magnetic excitations in α-RuCl(3) and demonstrates a proof-of-principle method to detect anomalous excitations in topological quantum materials. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-06-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8192767/ /pubmed/34112804 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23826-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Li, Haoxiang
Zhang, T. T.
Said, A.
Fabbris, G.
Mazzone, D. G.
Yan, J. Q.
Mandrus, D.
Halász, Gábor B.
Okamoto, S.
Murakami, S.
Dean, M. P. M.
Lee, H. N.
Miao, H.
Giant phonon anomalies in the proximate Kitaev quantum spin liquid α-RuCl(3)
title Giant phonon anomalies in the proximate Kitaev quantum spin liquid α-RuCl(3)
title_full Giant phonon anomalies in the proximate Kitaev quantum spin liquid α-RuCl(3)
title_fullStr Giant phonon anomalies in the proximate Kitaev quantum spin liquid α-RuCl(3)
title_full_unstemmed Giant phonon anomalies in the proximate Kitaev quantum spin liquid α-RuCl(3)
title_short Giant phonon anomalies in the proximate Kitaev quantum spin liquid α-RuCl(3)
title_sort giant phonon anomalies in the proximate kitaev quantum spin liquid α-rucl(3)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8192767/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34112804
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23826-1
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