Critical spin dynamics of Heisenberg ferromagnets revisited

TL;DR

This paper uses a functional renormalization group approach to analyze the critical spin dynamics of quantum Heisenberg ferromagnets near the transition temperature, providing explicit scaling functions and comparing with experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a new functional renormalization group method to calculate the dynamic structure factor near criticality in quantum Heisenberg ferromagnets, including explicit scaling functions and frequency behaviors.

Findings

Derived the dynamic scaling form of $S(k, ta)$ near $T_c$

Calculated the dynamic scaling function f Phi(x,y) and found good agreement with experiments

Identified discrepancies in low-frequency behavior with previous theories

Abstract

We calculate the dynamic structure factor $S (\boldsymbol{k},\omega)$ in the paramagnetic regime of quantum Heisenberg ferromagnets for temperatures $T$ close to the critical temperature $T_c$ using our recently developed functional renormalization group approach to quantum spin systems. In $d=3$ dimensions we find that for small momenta $\boldsymbol{k}$ and frequencies $\omega$ the dynamic structure factor assumes the scaling form $S(\boldsymbol{k},\omega) = (\tau T G (\boldsymbol{k})/\pi)\Phi (k\xi, \omega\tau)$, where $ G (\boldsymbol{k})$ is the static spin-spin correlation function, $\xi$ is the correlation length, and the characteristic time-scale $\tau$ is proportional to $\xi^{5/2}$. We explicitly calculate the dynamic scaling function $\Phi (x,y)$ and find satisfactory agreement with neutron scattering experiments probing the critical spin dynamics in EuO and EuS. Precisely at the critical point where $\xi = \infty$ our result for the dynamic structure factor can be written as $S (\boldsymbol{k},\omega) = (\pi\omega_k)^{-1} T_c G (\boldsymbol{k}) \Psi_c (\omega/\omega_k)$, where $\omega_k \propto k^{5/2}$. We find that $\Psi_c(\nu)$ vanishes as $\nu^{-13/5}$ for large $\nu$, and as $\nu^{3/5}$ for small $\nu$. While the large-frequency behavior of $\Psi_c (\nu)$ is consistent with calculations based on mode-coupling theory and with perturbative renormalization group calculations to second order in $\epsilon = 6-d$, our result for small frequencies disagrees with previous calculations. We argue that up until now neither experiments nor numerical simulations are sufficiently accurate to determine the low-frequency behavior of $\Psi_c (\nu)$. We also calculate the low-temperature behavior of $S ( \boldsymbol{k},\omega)$ in one- and two dimensional ferromagnets and find that it satisfies dynamic scaling with exponent $z=2$ and exhibits a pseudogap for small frequencies.