Origin of the saw-tooth torque in spin-orbital-coupled magnets: Application to α-RuCl<sub>3</sub>

ORAL

Abstract

Honeycomb Kitaev candidate materials based on 4d5 and 5d5 metals have been recently shown to commonly display a distinct saw-tooth angular dependence of the magnetic torque over a wide range of magnetic fields. By a combination of density functional theory calculations, exact diagonalization and semiclassical considerations, we show here that bilinear anisotropic interactions and/or g-anisotropy are each sufficient to explain the observed torque response, which may be distinguished on the basis of high-field measurements.
We argue that these finding unify the understanding of magnetic torque experiments in a variety of Kitaev candidate materials.

*We acknowledge support by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

Presenters

  • Roser Valenti

    • Institute of Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
    • Institut für Theoretische Physik Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Mai
    • Goethe University Frankfurt
    • Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt
    • Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt

Authors

  • Roser Valenti

    • Institute of Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
    • Institut für Theoretische Physik Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Mai
    • Goethe University Frankfurt
    • Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt
    • Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt
  • Kira M. Riedl

    • Goethe University Frankfurt
    • Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt
  • Stephen Winter

    • Goethe University Frankfurt
    • Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt
    • Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt