2009/12/22 by Christopher L. Henley · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1146/annurev-conmatphys-070909-104138
30 pp, 5 figures (Sub. to Annual Reviews of Condensed Matter Physics)
arxiv created 2009/12/22 · arxiv updated 2015/05/14
The "Coulomb phase" is an emergent state for lattice models (particularly highly frustrated antiferromagnets) which have local constraints that can be mapped to a divergence-free "flux". The coarse-grained version of this flux or polarization behave analogously to electric or magnetic fields; in particular, defects at which the local constraint is violated behave as effective charges with Coulomb interactions. I survey the derivation of the characteristic power-law correlation functions and the pinch-points in reciprocal space plots of diffuse scattering, as well as applications to magnetic relaxation, quantum-mechanical generalizations, phase transitions to long-range-ordered states, and the effects of disorder.