Amplitude mode in the planar triangular antiferromagnet Na$_{0.9}$MnO$_2$

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a stable, long-lived amplitude mode in a two-dimensional anisotropic triangular antiferromagnet, revealing how geometric frustration and anisotropy enable such exotic magnetic excitations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that geometric frustration and uniaxial anisotropy in a 2D triangular antiferromagnet can produce stable amplitude modes, a phenomenon rarely observed in magnetic materials.

Findings

Observation of a long-lived, coherent oscillation of the staggered magnetization.

Identification of a longitudinally polarized bound state driven by Ising-like anisotropy.

Evidence that frustration and anisotropy can stabilize amplitude modes in quantum magnets.

Abstract

Amplitude modes arising from symmetry breaking in materials are of broad interest in condensed matter physics. These modes reflect an oscillation in the amplitude of a complex order parameter, yet are typically unstable and decay into oscillations of the order parameter's phase. This renders stable amplitude modes rare, and exotic effects in quantum antiferromagnets have historically provided a realm for their detection. Here we report an alternate route to realizing amplitude modes in magnetic materials by demonstrating that an antiferromagnet on a two-dimensional anisotropic triangular lattice ($\alpha$-Na$_{0.9}$MnO$_2$) exhibits a long-lived, coherent oscillation of its staggered magnetization field. Our results show that geometric frustration of Heisenberg spins with uniaxial single-ion anisotropy can renormalize the interactions of a dense two-dimensional network of moments into largely decoupled, one-dimensional chains that manifest a longitudinally polarized bound state. This bound state is driven by the Ising-like anisotropy inherent to the Mn$^{3+}$ ions of this compound.