\mu SR-detection of the soft-mode toward the exotic magnetic ground state in bond-disordered quantum spin system IPA-Cu(Cl$_{0.35}$Br$_{0.65}$)$_3$

TL;DR

This study uses muon spin relaxation to detect a soft magnetic mode in a disordered quantum spin system, revealing a potential quantum phase transition at zero temperature.

Contribution

It provides microscopic evidence of a soft-mode in a bond-disordered quantum spin system, indicating proximity to a quantum critical point.

Findings

Detection of a soft-mode in spin fluctuations at low temperatures

Evidence of a possible magnetic phase transition at zero temperature

Microscopic insight into the ground state of bond-disordered quantum magnets

Abstract

The spin-gap system with a bond-disorder (CH3)2CHNH3-Cu(ClxBr1-x)3 is reported by experiments on macroscopic quantities of the uniform susceptibility and the specific heat to show a magnetic order at low temperatures when the value of x is within the limited region between 0.44 and 0.87, and otherwise a gapped behavior. We have investigated microscopically the ground state of the sample with x=0.35 by muon spin relaxation (mSR) to observe that the frequency spectrum of the spin fluctuation tends to concentrate around zero energy as lowering temperatures. This behavior was interpreted as the soft-mode toward the possible magnetic phase transition at absolute zero.