2009/09/30 by Mark H. Fischer, Manfred Sigrist · 1 citation
Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Anisotropy #Condensed matter physics #Coupling (piping) #Critical field #Field (mathematics) #Geometry #Liquid crystal #Magnetic and transport properties of perovskites and related materials #Magnetic field #Magnetization #Materials science #Mathematics #Optics #Phase (matter) #Phase transition #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Singularity #Spin (aerodynamics) #Superconductivity #Thermodynamics #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.81.064435
published as Phys. Rev. B 81, 064435 (2010)
arxiv created 2010/02/26 · openalex publication_date 2010/02/26 · arxiv updated 2010/03/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Ultraclean crystals of Sr3Ru2O7 undergo a metamagnetic transition at low temperatures. This transition shows a strong anisotropy in the applied field direction with the critical field Hc ranging from \ensuremath∼5.1 T for H perpendicular to c to \ensuremath∼8 T for H\ensuremath∥c. In addition, studies on ultrapure samples revealed a bifurcation of the metamagnetic line for fields in c direction and it has been argued that a nematic phase emerges between the magnetization jumps. The aim of this study is to explain the field-direction anisotropy of these phenomena. Based on a microscopic tight-binding model, we introduce the metamagnetic transition by means of a Van Hove singularity scenario. We show that the rotation of the O octahedra around the c axis observed in this material introduces a staggered spin-orbit coupling within the planes and naturally leads to an anisotropy in the low-temperature behavior around the metamagnetic transition. In particular, the low-temperature (nematic) phase is affected. We show that uniform in-plane magnetic fields induce a (commensurate) staggered magnetic-moment component which can suppress the low-temperature phase. In contrast, the response to fields along the c axis remains unaffected and thus, also the corresponding low-temperature phase. As a concrete example, we choose a nematic Pomeranchuk instability for the low-temperature phase. An experimentally testable prediction of this work is the occurrence of a staggered magnetic moment in response to a uniform magnetic field perpendicular to the c axis, which should be accessible by neutron scattering.