Collective dynamics in the Heisenberg pyrochlore antiferromagnet Gd 2 Sn 2 O 7

Published

October 22, 2008

Author(s)

J. R. Stewart, Jason Gardner, Yiming Qiu, G. Ehlers

Abstract

Gd2Sn2O7 is believed to be a good approximation to a Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a pyrochlore lattice with exchange and dipole-dipole interactions. The system is known to enter a long-range ordered ground state (the "Palmer Chalker" state) below Tc = 1 K with kord = (000). However, persistent electronic spin fluctuations have been observed as T→ 0. Using inelastic neutron scattering, we have studied the buildup of short-range spin-spin correlations as the temperature is lowered, and the eventual formation of a gapped long-range ordered state that is able to sustain spin waves below Tc. As a magnetic field is applied, new magnetic phases develop and the gap widens. These measurements show that Gd2Sn2O7 completely relieves itself of frustration, but the self-selected ground state is very delicate.

Citation

Physical Review B

Volume

78

Issue

13

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.132410

Local Download

Keywords

diffraction, time of flight spectrometry, magnetic frustration

Citation

Stewart, J. , Gardner, J. , Qiu, Y. and Ehlers, G. (2008), Collective dynamics in the Heisenberg pyrochlore antiferromagnet Gd 2 Sn 2 O 7, Physical Review B, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.132410, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=610025 (Accessed October 13, 2025)