The quantum spin quadrumer

TL;DR

This paper develops a semiclassical theory for the four-spin cluster in frustrated magnetism, revealing an emergent spin and rotor description that explains its spectrum and thermodynamics, with implications for complex magnetic systems.

Contribution

It introduces a novel semiclassical framework for the N=4 spin cluster, uncovering its topological ground state space and emergent degrees of freedom, extending understanding beyond N=2 and 3 clusters.

Findings

Ground states parametrized by a unit vector and rotation matrix

Low energy physics reduces to an emergent free spin and rotor

Mapping holds generally except near collinear states with extra soft modes

Abstract

A fundamental motif in frustrated magnetism is the fully mutually coupled cluster of $N$ spins, with each spin coupled to every other spin. Clusters with $N=2$ and $3$ have been extensively studied as building blocks of square and triangular lattice antiferromagnets. In both cases, large-$S$ semiclassical descriptions have been fruitfully constructed, providing insights into the physics of macroscopic magnetic systems. Here, we develop a semiclassical theory for the $N=4$ cluster. This problem has rich mathematical structure with a ground state space that has non-trivial topology. We show that the ground states are appropriately parametrized by a unit vector order parameter and a rotation matrix. Remarkably, in the low energy description, the physics of the cluster reduces to that of an emergent free spin-$S$ spin and a rigid rotor. This successfully explains the spectrum of the quadrumer and its associated degeneracies. However, this mapping does not hold in the vicinity of collinear ground states due to a subtle effect that arises from the non-manifold nature of the ground state space. We demonstrate this by an analysis of soft fluctuations, showing that collinear states have a larger number of soft modes. Nevertheless, as these singularities only occur on a subset of measure zero, the mapping to a spin and a rotor provides a good description of the quadrumer. We interpret thermodynamic properties of the quadrumer that are accessible in molecular magnets, in terms of the rotor and spin degrees of freedom. Our study paves the way for field theoretic descriptions of systems such as pyrochlore magnets.