Spin ice on the trillium lattice studied by Monte Carlo calculations

TL;DR

This study investigates a classical spin model on the trillium lattice, revealing high frustration and macroscopic degeneracy, with Monte Carlo simulations showing intermediate entropy levels and magnetic properties similar to known spin ice materials.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of trillium spin ice, analyzing its properties through Monte Carlo simulations and comparing it to other spin ice systems.

Findings

Ground state entropy is intermediate between kagome and pyrochlore spin ices.

Trillium spin ice exhibits high frustration and macroscopic degeneracy.

Magnetic susceptibility resembles that of EuPtSi with trillium lattice moments.

Abstract

We study a local ferromagnetic Ising model for classical spins on the trillium lattice. The ground state of this model features two spins out(/in) and one spin in(/out) on each triangle, and leads to a macroscopic ground state degeneracy. Our Monte Carlo simulations find a ground state entropy intermediate to that of spin ice on the kagome and pyrochlore lattices, suggesting that trillium spin ice is highly frustrated. To motivate the search for trillium spin ice, we calculate the magnetic susceptibility and structure factor. We note the qualitative resemblance of the susceptibility to previously published work on EuPtSi, which features local moments on the trillium lattice.