Magnetic Monopoles In Spin Ice

Sinad Griffin May 28, 2010

Magnetic Monopoles in Spin Ice

What are the features of these magnetic excitations? How do the material properties cause them?

Castelnovo et al (2008), Morris et al (2009)

What are Magnetic Monopoles?

Benjamin Franklin - electric fields caused by + and charge - magnetic fields caused by N and S poles Maxwell - 1800s: link between magnetism and electricity - Maxwells Equations for Electromagnetism (1873):
Without Monopoles

Faraday - suggested idea of magnetic charges as a computational tool

Jackson (1975), Maxwell (1873)

What are Magnetic Monopoles?

Benjamin Franklin - electric fields caused by + and charge - magnetic fields caused by N and S poles Maxwell - 1800s: link between magnetism and electricity - Maxwells Equations for Electromagnetism (1873):
Without Monopoles With Monopoles

Faraday - suggested idea of magnetic charges as a computational tool

Jackson (1975), Maxwell (1873)

Magnetic Monopoles: A Physical Reality?

Pierre Curie - first to suggest the existence of isolated magnetic monopoles Paul Dirac - firm theoretical grounding of magnetic monopoles in 1931 paper - quantization of electric charge is the result of the existence of isolated electric and magnetic charges. DIRAC MONOPOLE: A magnetic monopole is an isolated particle that acts as a source of a magnetic field (i.e. non-zero divergence). DIRAC STRING: Infinitely thin flux tubes that connect magnetic monopoles.

Many Grand Unified Theories predict the existence of magnetic monopoles that were created in the beginning of the universe.

Curie (1894), Dirac (1931), Polchinski (2003)

Spin Ice Pyrochlores

R2Ti2O7 or R2Sn2O7
R: rare earth with a large magnetic moment

Bramwell & Gringas (2001)

Spin Ice Pyrochlores

R2Ti2O7 or R2Sn2O7
R: rare earth with a large magnetic moment

Gd2Ti2O7 Phase transition to unusual long range order at 1K Tb2Ti2O7 Dy2Ti2O7 Ho2Ti2O7 Er2Ti2O7 Cooperative paramagnetic/ spin liquid Spin Ice Spin Ice Long range magnetic order

Greedan (2005)

Pyrochlore Lattice
R2Ti2O7 R2Ti2O6O Corner-sharing octahedra Corner-sharing tetrahedra Two sublattices: Ti2O6 R2O

Geometrical Frustration in Pyrochlores

Geometric Frustration: Local ordering rules are incompatible with long-range ordering

2D Frustration:

AFM ordering on a triangle 1/3 of spins frustrated

3D Frustration:

FM ordering in tetrahedron (A2O) of spins frustrated Ising spin axis is along diamond bonds

Snyder et al (2001)

Ice Rules
Phil Anderson pointed out a connection in 1956

Hydrogen Positions In Ice-Ih

Magnetic Tetrahedra in Pyrochlores

H2O Wurtzite structure Two H close, two H far Anderson (1956), Pauling (1945)

R2O Pyrochlore sublattice Two spins in, two spins out

Ground State Entropy at 0K

Apply spin ice rules (two in, two out) to a 2D lattice

Choice of which spins point in and which spins point out: - Degenerate ground state - Residual Entropy

S=kBlnW
W= 3/2 for Ice-Ih or spin ice.

Giaque & Stout (1936)

Creating Monopoles in Spin Ice

T > 0K Thermal fluctuations cause disorder in the lattice

Image from www.backreaction.blogspot.com

Creating Monopoles in Spin Ice

T > 0K Thermal fluctuations cause disorder in the lattice Some spins will flip

Creating Monopoles in Spin Ice

T > 0K Thermal fluctuations cause disorder in the lattice Some spins will flip Defect propagates through the lattice to preserve the ice rules

Are these Dirac Monopoles/Strings?

Packets of magnetic charge Separated by string of flipped spins Move independently - dont keep their partners - many ways of connecting a + and Always occur in pairs Dipole model describes the interactions (not point charges, but oriented dipoles) Dirac string not infinitely thin, rather an observable flux tube Divergence is always zero

So what are these magnetic excitations? - Not fundamental particles but emergent quasi-particles - Have many characteristics of isolated magnetic charges - Example of 3D fractionalization of magnetic charge

Castelnovo et al (2008), Jaubert et al (2009)

Uses for Quasi Magnetic Monopoles

Magnetricity: Magnetic quasiparticles are charge-like and have an associated current Influence of applying magnetic and electric fields

Model for understanding frustrated magnetic systems

Study of ground state degeneracy related to other systems such as protein folding and relaxor ferroelectrics

Bramwell et. al (2009),

References
Magnetic monopoles in spin ice Nature 451 42 (2008) C. Castelnovo, R. Moessner & S. L. Sondhi Dirac Strings and Magnetic Monopoles in the Spin Ice Dy2Ti2O7 Science 326 411 (2009) D. J. P. Morris, D. A. Tennant, S. A. Grigera, B. Klemke, C. Castelnovo, R. Moessner, C. Czternasty, M. Meissner, K. C. Rule, J. U. Hoffmann, K. Kiefer, S. Gerischer, D. Slobinsky, R. S. Perry Classical Electrodynamics Wiley (1975) J. D. Jackson Sur la possibilit dexistence de la conductibilit magntique et du magntisme libre Sances de la Socit Franais de Physique, p 76 (1984) P. Curie Quantised singularities in the electromagnetic field Proc. R. Soc. A 133 60 (1931) P. A. M. Dirac Monopoles, Duality and String Theory hep-th/0304042 (2003) J. Polchinski Spin Ice State in Frustrated Magnetic Pyrochlore Materials Science 294 1495 (2001) S. T. Bramwell & M. J. P. Gringas Frustrated rare earth magnetism: Spin glasses, spin liquids and spin ices in pyrochlore oxides Journal of Alloys and Compounds 408-412 444 (2005) J. E. Greedan

References
How spin ice freezes Nature 413 48 (2001) J. Snyder, J. S. Slusky, R. J. Cava & P. Schiffer Ordering and Antiferromagnetism in Ferrites Physical Review 102 4 1008 (1956) P. W. Anderson The Nature of the Chemical Bond Cornell Univ. Press, Ithaca, New York (1945) L. Pauling The entropy of water and the third law of thermodynamics The heat capacity of ice from 15K to 273K. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 58 1144 (1936) W. F. Giaque & J. W. Stout Signature of magnetic monopole and Dirac string dynamics in spin ice Nature Physics 5 258 (2009) L. D. C. Jaubert and P. C. W. Holdsworth Measurement of the charge and current of magnetic monopoles in spin ice Nature 461 956 (2009) S. T. Bramwell, S. R. Giblin, S. Calder, R. Aldus, D. Prabhakaran & T. Fennell