Abstract
Quantum spin liquids are long-range entangled states of matter with emergent gauge fields and fractionalized excitations. While candidate materials, such as the Kitaev honeycomb ruthenate α-RuCl3, show magnetic order at low temperatures T, here we demonstrate numerically a dynamical crossover from magnonlike behavior at low T and frequencies ω to long-lived fractionalized fermionic quasiparticles at higher T and ω. This crossover is akin to the presence of spinon continua in quasi-1D spin chains. It is further shown to go hand in hand with persistent typicality down to very low T. This aspect, which has also been observed in the spin-1/2 kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet, is a signature of proximate spin liquidity and emergent gauge degrees of freedom more generally, and can be the basis for the numerical study of many finite-T properties of putative spin liquids.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 045117 |
Journal | Physical Review B |
Volume | 100 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 12 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2019 American Physical Society.