Emergent gauge dynamics of highly frustrated magnets
Condensed matter exhibits a wide variety of exotic emergent phenomena such as the fractional quantum Hall effect and the low temperature cooperative behavior of highly frustrated magnets. I consider the classical Hamiltonian dynamics of spins of the latter phenomena using a method introduced by Dira...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2013-01-01
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| Series: | New Journal of Physics |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/15/4/043043 |
| Summary: | Condensed matter exhibits a wide variety of exotic emergent phenomena such as the fractional quantum Hall effect and the low temperature cooperative behavior of highly frustrated magnets. I consider the classical Hamiltonian dynamics of spins of the latter phenomena using a method introduced by Dirac in the 1950s by assuming they are constrained to their lowest energy configurations as a simplifying measure. Focusing on the kagome antiferromagnet as an example, I find it is a gauge system with topological dynamics and non-locally connected edge states for certain open boundary conditions similar to doubled Chern–Simons electrodynamics expected of a Z _2 spin liquid. These dynamics are also similar to electrons in the fractional quantum Hall effect. The classical theory presented here is a first step toward a controlled semi-classical description of the spin liquid phases of many pyrochlore and kagome antiferromagnets and toward a description of the low energy classical dynamics of the corresponding unconstrained Heisenberg models. |
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| ISSN: | 1367-2630 |