2015/10/31 by Owen Benton, Ludovic D. C. Jaubert, Han Yan +1 · 3 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Condensed matter physics #Electromagnetism #Electron #Gauge anomaly #Gauge boson #Gauge theory #General relativity #Gravitational singularity #Introduction to gauge theory #Mathematical descriptions of the electromagnetic field #Multiferroics and related materials #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Pinch #Quantum mechanics #Quantum spin liquid #Spin (aerodynamics) #Spin ice #Spin polarization #Theoretical physics #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/ncomms11572
published as Nature Commun. 7, 11572 (2016) · 4 pages of main text, 3 figures
openalex publication_date 2016/05/26 · arxiv created 2016/06/09 · arxiv updated 2016/06/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The mathematics of gauge theories lies behind many of the most profound advances in physics in the past 200 years, from Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism to Einstein's theory of general relativity. More recently it has become clear that gauge theories also emerge in condensed matter, a prime example being the spin-ice materials which host an emergent electromagnetic gauge field. In spin-ice, the underlying gauge structure is revealed by the presence of pinch-point singularities in neutron-scattering measurements. Here we report the discovery of a spin-liquid where the low-temperature physics is naturally described by the fluctuations of a tensor field with a continuous gauge freedom. This gauge structure underpins an unusual form of spin correlations, giving rise to pinch-line singularities: line-like analogues of the pinch points observed in spin-ice. Remarkably, these features may already have been observed in the pyrochlore material Tb2Ti2O7.