New physics in frustrated magnets: Spin ices, monopoles, etc

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in the physics of frustrated magnets, especially spin ices, highlighting their unique properties and emergent monopole-like excitations from both theoretical and experimental perspectives.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the latest theoretical and experimental findings on spin ices and emergent monopoles in frustrated magnetic systems.

Findings

Identification of monopole-like excitations in spin ices

Distinct properties of frustrated magnets compared to other magnetic systems

Experimental evidence supporting theoretical models of spin ice behavior

Abstract

During recent years the interest to frustrated magnets has grown considerably. Such systems reveal very peculiar properties which distinguish them from standard paramagnets, magnetically ordered regular systems (like ferro-, ferri-, and antiferromagnets), or spin glasses. In particular great amount of attention has been devoted to the so-called spin ices, in which magnetic frustration together with the large value of the single-ion magnetic anisotropy of a special kind, yield peculiar behavior. One of the most exciting features of spin ices is related to low-energy emergent excitations, which, from many viewpoints can be considered as analogies of Dirac's monopoles. In this article we review the main achievements of theory and experiment in this field of physics.