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Randomly Hopping Majorana Fermions in the Diluted Kitaev System α-Ru_{0.8}Ir_{0.2}Cl_{3}.
Seung-Hwan Do1, C H Lee1, T Kihara2
1Department of Physics, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Republic of Korea.
Physical Review Letters
|February 15, 2020
Summary
This study reveals Majorana-like excitations in a disordered Kitaev material, demonstrating the robustness of its spin liquid state despite vacancies. These findings suggest a unique hierarchy of spin excitations in diluted magnetic systems.
Area of Science:
- Condensed Matter Physics
- Quantum Materials
Background:
- Kitaev materials host exotic quantum spin liquid states.
- Spin vacancies and bond randomness can disrupt these states.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate low-lying spin excitations in diluted Kitaev honeycomb magnets.
- Probe the impact of spin vacancies on Kitaev paramagnetic states.
- Understand the emergent hierarchy of excitations in disordered systems.
Main Methods:
- Combined DC and AC magnetic susceptibility, magnetization, specific heat, and Raman scattering measurements.
- Analysis of energy-dependent spin excitations.
- Thermodynamic and spectroscopic characterization.
Main Results:
- Observed linearly ω-dependent Majorana-like excitations (intermediate energies) obeying Fermi statistics.
- Identified power-law dependences and quantum-critical-like scalings at low energies (<3 meV).
- Evidence for a weakly divergent low-energy density of states.
Conclusions:
- The Kitaev paramagnetic state is robust against spin vacancies.
- Random hoppings of Majorana fermions explain observed scaling phenomenology.
- An emergent hierarchy of spin excitations exists in diluted Kitaev honeycomb systems.
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