Direct Evidence for Fermi Statistics from Proximity to the Kitaev Spin Liquid in RuCl3

TL;DR

This study uses Raman scattering to provide direct experimental evidence of Fermi statistics in magnetic excitations of RuCl3, supporting its proximity to a Kitaev quantum spin liquid state.

Contribution

The paper introduces an improved Raman scattering method to identify fermionic pair creation, revealing Fermi statistics in RuCl3's magnetic excitations and clarifying the role of additional interactions.

Findings

Raman spectra show energy and temperature dependence consistent with fermionic excitations.

Comparison with QMC results identifies the energy range where spinon confinement occurs.

Evidence supports RuCl3's proximity to a Kitaev quantum spin liquid state.

Abstract

A key characteristic of quantum spin liquids(QSL) is the presence of fractional excitations related to their entanglement properties, yet experimental verification of their statistics is missing. For example, in the potential Kitaev spin liquid, RuCl3 experiments uncovered signs of fractional particles, though not their Fermi statistics. Here we employ Raman scattering to reveal the true nature of the magnetic excitations, using improved experimental methods and analysis to remove the influence of laser heating and thermal fluctuations. Via the energy loss and gain spectra, we extract the energy and temperature dependence of the Raman susceptibility to prove RuCl3's magnetic response is given by pair creation of fermionic excitations. Furthermore, by comparing with quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) results for the exact Kitaev limit, we are able to discern the energy and temperature range where additional interaction terms are important. Our results open new directions in QSL research by providing a new way to investigate fractional excitations and the importance of terms causing spinon confinement.