Pal, S and Seth, A and Sakrikar, P and Ali, A and Bhattacharjee, S and Muthu, DVS and Singh, Y and Sood, AK (2021) Probing signatures of fractionalization in the candidate quantum spin liquid Cu2IrO3 via anomalous Raman scattering. In: Physical Review B, 104 (18).
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Abstract
Long-range entanglement in quantum spin liquids (QSLs) leads to novel low-energy excitations with fractionalized quantum numbers and (in two dimensions) statistics. Experimental detection and manipulation of these excitations present a challenge particularly in view of diverse candidate magnets. A promising probe of fractionalization is their coupling to phonons. Here, we present Raman scattering results for the S=1/2 honeycomb iridate Cu2IrO3, a candidate Kitaev QSL with fractionalized Majorana fermions and Ising flux excitations. We observe anomalous low-temperature frequency shift and linewidth broadening of the Raman intensities in addition to a broad magnetic continuum, both of which, as we derive, are naturally attributed to the phonon decaying into itinerant Majoranas. The dynamic Raman susceptibility marks a crossover from the QSL to a thermal paramagnet at �120 K. The phonon anomalies below this temperature demonstrate a strong phonon-Majorana coupling. These results provide evidence of spin fractionalization in Cu2IrO3. © 2021 American Physical Society.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
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| Publication: | Physical Review B |
| Publisher: | American Physical Society |
| Additional Information: | The copyright for this article belongs to the Author. |
| Keywords: | Copper compounds; Iridium compounds; Quantum entanglement; Raman scattering; Temperature, Frequency shift; Frequency-linewidth; Liquid lead; Low-energy excitations; Lows-temperatures; Majorana; Quantum numbers; Quantum spin liquid; Shift-and; Two-dimensions, Phonons |
| Department/Centre: | Division of Physical & Mathematical Sciences > Physics |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Jan 2022 06:18 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Jan 2022 06:18 |
| URI: | http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/70839 |
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