Single-Crystal Diffuse Neutron Scattering 51猎奇入口 of the Dipole-Octupole Quantum Spin-Ice Candidate Ce2Zr2O7: No Apparent Octupolar Correlations Above T=0.05 K

Physical Review X American Physical Society (APS) 15:2 (2025) 021033

Authors:

EM Smith, R Sch盲fer, J Dudemaine, B Placke, B Yuan, Z Morgan, F Ye, R Moessner, O Benton, AD Bianchi, BD Gaulin

Abstract:

The insulating magnetic pyrochlore Ce 2 Zr 2 O 7 has gained attention as a quantum spin-ice candidate with dipole-octupole character that arises from the crystal-electric-field ground-state doublet for the Ce 3 + Kramers ion. This dipole-octupole character permits both spin-ice phases based on magnetic dipoles and those based on more-exotic octupoles. This work reports low-temperature neutron diffraction measurements on single-crystal Ce 2 Zr 2 O 7 with Q coverage both at low Q , where the magnetic form factor for dipoles is near maximal, and at high Q , covering the region where the magnetic form factor for Ce 3 + octupoles is near maximal. This study was motivated by recent powder neutron diffraction studies of other Ce-based dipole-octupole pyrochlores, Ce 2 Sn 2 O 7 and Ce 2 Hf 2 O 7 , which each showed temperature-dependent diffuse diffraction at high Q , interpreted as arising from octupolar correlations. Our measurements use an optimized single-crystal diffuse scattering instrument that allows us to screen against strong Bragg scattering from Ce 2 Zr 2 O 7 . The temperature-difference neutron diffraction reveals a low- Q peak consistent with dipolar spin-ice correlations reported in previous work, and an alternation between positive and negative net intensity at higher Q . These features are consistent with our numerical-linked-cluster calculations using pseudospin interaction parameters previously reported for Ce 2 Zr 2 O 7 , Ce 2 Sn 2 O 7 , and Ce 2 Hf 2 O 7 . Importantly, neither the measured data nor any of the NLC calculations show evidence for increased scattering at high Q resulting from octupolar correlations. We conclude that at the lowest attainable temperature for our measurements ( T = 0.05 K ), scattering from octupolar correlations in Ce 2 Zr 2 O 7 is not present in the neutron diffraction signal on the level of our observation threshold of around 0.1% of the low- Q dipole scattering. We compare these results to those obtained earlier on powder Ce 2 Sn 2 O 7 and Ce 2 Hf 2 O 7 , and to low-energy inelastic neutron scattering from single-crystal Ce 2 Zr 2 O 7 .

A closed band-projected density algebra must be Girvin-MacDonald-Platzman

Physical Review Letters American Physical Society 134 (2025) 136502

Authors:

Ziwei Wang, Steven Simon

Abstract:

The band-projected density operators in a Landau level obey the Girvin-MacDonald-Platzman (GMP) algebra, and a large amount of effort in the study of fractional Chern insulators has been directed toward approximating this algebra in a Chern band. In this Letter, we prove that the GMP algebra, up to form factors, is the聽only聽closed algebra that projected density operators can satisfy in two and three dimensions, highlighting the central place it occupies in the study of Chern bands in general. A number of interesting corollaries follow.

Solvable Quantum Circuits in Tree+1 Dimensions

(2025)

Authors:

Oliver Breach, Benedikt Placke, Pieter W Claeys, SA Parameswaran

Odd electrical circuits

(2025)

Authors:

Harry Walden, Alexander Stegmaier, J枚rn Dunkel, Alexander Mietke

Pivoting through the chiral-clock family

SciPost Physics SciPost 18 (2025) 094

Authors:

Nick G Jones, Abhishodh Prakash, Paul Fendley

Abstract:

The Onsager algebra, invented to solve the two-dimensional Ising model, can be used to construct conserved charges for a family of integrable $N$-state chiral clock models. We show how it naturally gives rise to a "pivot" procedure for this family of chiral Hamiltonians. These Hamiltonians have an anti-unitary CPT symmetry that when combined with the usual $\mathbb{Z}_N$ clock symmetry gives a non-abelian dihedral symmetry group $D_{2N}$. We show that this symmetry gives rise to symmetry-protected topological (SPT) order in this family for all even $N$, and representation-SPT (RSPT) physics for all odd $N$. The simplest such example is a next-nearest-neighbour chain generalising the spin-1/2 cluster model, an SPT phase of matter. We derive a matrix-product state representation of its fixed-point ground state along with the ensuing entanglement spectrum and symmetry fractionalisation. We analyse a rich phase diagram combining this model with the Onsager-integrable chiral Potts chain, and find trivial, symmetry-breaking and (R)SPT orders, as well as extended gapless regions. For odd $N$, the phase transitions are "unnecessarily" critical from the SPT point of view.