Spinon Confinement in the One-Dimensional Ising-Like Antiferromagnet SrCo2V2O8

TL;DR

This study investigates spinon confinement in SrCo2V2O8, a quasi-one-dimensional antiferromagnet, using terahertz spectroscopy, revealing Zeeman splitting of spinon-pair excitations and confirming theoretical confinement models.

Contribution

It provides experimental evidence of spinon confinement in SrCo2V2O8 and demonstrates the applicability of a linear confinement potential model to describe the hierarchy of confined spinons.

Findings

Observation of Zeeman-like splitting of excitations

Identification of spinon-pair excitations

Full description of confined spinons hierarchy

Abstract

For quasi-one dimensional quantum spin systems theory predicts the occurrence of a confinement of spinon excitation due to interchain couplings. Here we investigate the system SrCo2V2O8, a realization of the weakly-coupled Ising-like XXZ antiferromagnetic chains, by terahertz spectroscopy with and without applied magnetic field. At low temperatures a series of excitations is observed, which split in a Zeeman-like fashion in an applied magnetic field. These magnetic excitations are identified as the theoretically predicted spinon-pair excitations. Using a one dimensional Schr\"odinger equation with a linear confinement potential imposed by weak interchain couplings, the hierarchy of the confined spinons can be fully described.