Instabilities of heavy magnons in an anisotropic magnet

Abstract The search for new elementary particles is one of the most basic pursuits in physics, spanning from subatomic physics to quantum materials. Magnons are the ubiquitous elementary quasiparticle to describe the excitations of fully-ordered magnetic systems. But other possibilities exist, inclu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Xiaojian Bai, Shang-Shun Zhang, Hao Zhang, Zhiling Dun, W. Adam Phelan, V. Ovidiu Garlea, Martin Mourigal, Cristian D. Batista
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2023-07-01
Series:Nature Communications
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39940-1
Description
Summary:Abstract The search for new elementary particles is one of the most basic pursuits in physics, spanning from subatomic physics to quantum materials. Magnons are the ubiquitous elementary quasiparticle to describe the excitations of fully-ordered magnetic systems. But other possibilities exist, including fractional and multipolar excitations. Here, we demonstrate that strong quantum interactions exist between three flavors of elementary quasiparticles in the uniaxial spin-one magnet FeI2. Using neutron scattering in an applied magnetic field, we observe spontaneous decay between conventional and heavy magnons and the recombination of these quasiparticles into a super-heavy bound-state. Akin to other contemporary problems in quantum materials, the microscopic origin for unusual physics in FeI2 is the quasi-flat nature of excitation bands and the presence of Kitaev anisotropic magnetic exchange interactions.
ISSN:2041-1723