Field-induced Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid phase of a two-leg spin-1/2 ladder with strong leg interactions

ORAL

Abstract

We study the magnetic-field-induced quantum phase transition from a gapped quantum phase that has no magnetic long-range order into a gapless phase in the spin-1/2 ladder compound bis(2,3-dimethylpyridinium) tetrabromocuprate (DIMPY) [1]. At temperatures below about 1~K, the specific heat in the gapless phase attains an asymptotic linear temperature dependence, characteristic of a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid. Inelastic neutron scattering and the specific heat measurements in both phases are in good agreement with theoretical calculations, demonstrating that DIMPY is the first model material for an $S=1/2$ two-leg spin ladder in the strong-leg regime. \\[4pt] [1] T. Hong et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 137207 (2010)

*The work at ORNL was partially funded by the Division of Scientific User Facilities, Office of BES, DOE.

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Authors

  • Tao Hong

    • Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  • Y.H. Kim

    • University of Florida

  • C. Hotta

    • Kyoto Sangyo University

  • Y. Takano

    • University of Florida

  • G. Tremelling

    • Clark University

  • M.M. Turnbull

    • Clark University

  • C.P. Landee

    • Clark University

  • H.-J. Kang

    • National Institute of Standards and Technology

  • N.B. Christensen

    • ETH Zurich and Paul Scherrer Institute

  • K. Lefmann

    • University of Copenhagen

  • K.P. Schmidt

    • TU Dortmund

  • G.S. Uhrig

    • TU Dortmund

  • C. Broholm

    • The Johns Hopkins University