2009/10/30 by SungBin Lee, Ribhu K. Kaul, Leon Balents · 68 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Antiferromagnetism #Condensed matter physics #Ferrimagnetism #Ferromagnetism #Frustration #Hexagonal lattice #Ising model #Lattice (music) #Magnetic field #Paramagnetism #Phase (matter) #Phase diagram #Phase transition #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum #Quantum mechanics #Quantum phase transition #Quantum phases #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nphys1696
published in Nature Physics 6(9), 702-706 (Nature Portfolio)
arxiv created 2009/10/30 · openalex publication_date 2010/06/13 · arxiv updated 2010/09/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Motivated by CoNb2O6 (belonging to the columbite family of minerals), we theoretically study the physics of quantum ferromagnetic Ising chains coupled anti-ferromagnetically on a triangular lattice in the plane perpendicular to the chain direction. We combine exact solutions of the chain physics with perturbative approximations for the transverse couplings. When the triangular lattice has an isosceles distortion (which occurs in the real material), the T=0 phase diagram is rich with five different states of matter: ferrimagnetic, Néel, anti-ferromagnetic, paramagnetic and incommensurate phases, separated by quantum phase transitions. Implications of our results to experiments on CoNb2O6 are discussed.