Importance of dynamic lattice effects for crystal field excitations in quantum spin ice candidate Pr<sub>2</sub>Zr<sub>2</sub>O<sub>7</sub>

ORAL

Abstract

Pr2Zr2O7 is a quantum spin ice candidate, where a splitting of the Pr3+ non-Kramers ground state doublet was suggested as an origin of the transverse field component leading to the exotic physics in this material [1]. We performed the low temperature Raman scattering experiments on Pr2Zr2O7 single crystals to probe the crystal electric field excitations and phonons. We directly observed a splitting of the excited state doublet at around 55 meV which originates from vibronic coupling of the Eg doublet with a phonon. We deduct a 1 meV splitting of the ground state Eg doublet from the line shape of the excitation to the first excited A1g state. The well-defined splitting of the ground state suggests that static or low frequency dynamic deviation of Pr3+ environment from D3d symmetry causes the splitting.

[1] J-J Wen, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett 118 (10), 107206

*This work was supported as part of the Institute for Quantum Matter, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences under Award No. DE-SC0019331

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Presenters

  • Yuanyuan Xu

    • Johns Hopkins University
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University

Authors

  • Yuanyuan Xu

    • Johns Hopkins University
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University

  • Huiyuan Man

    • Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Stanford University
    • Johns Hopkins University
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University
    • Stanford University

  • Nan Tang

    • The Institute for Solid State Physics, The University of Tokyo

  • Santu Baidya

    • Rutgers University
    • Rutgers University, New Brunswick
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University

  • Satoru Nakatsuji

    • Department of Physics and ISSP, University of Tokyo
    • Department of Physics, the University of Tokyo
    • Univ of Tokyo
    • Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo
    • The Institute for Solid State physics, The Univeristy of Tokyo
    • The Institute for Solid State Physics, The University of Tokyo
    • Institute for Solid State physics, University of Tokyo

  • David Vanderbilt

    • Rutgers University, New Brunswick
    • Rutgers University
    • Physics, Rutger Univeristy
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA

  • Natalia Drichko

    • Johns Hopkins University
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University