Sound attenuation in the hyperhoneycomb Kitaev spin liquid

TL;DR

This paper proposes using sound attenuation measurements to identify the hyperhoneycomb Kitaev quantum spin liquid by analyzing phonon interactions with Majorana fermions, revealing characteristic angular dependence at low temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a method to detect the hyperhoneycomb Kitaev spin liquid via sound attenuation, focusing on phonon-Majorana fermion interactions and their angular dependence.

Findings

Sound attenuation shows a distinctive angular dependence.

The method is effective below the flux gap energy.

Proposes a new experimental probe for Kitaev spin liquids.

Abstract

In recent years, it has been shown that the phonon dynamics may serve as an indirect probe of fractionalization of spin degrees of freedom. Here we propose that the sound attenuation measurements allows for the characterization and identification of the Kitaev quantum spin liquid on the hyperhoneycomb lattice, which is particularly interesting since the strong Kitaev interaction was observed in the the hyperhoneycomb magnet $\beta$-Li$_2$IrO$_3$. To this end we consider the low-temperature scattering between acoustic phonons and gapless Majorana fermions with nodal-line band structure. We find that the sound attenuation has a characteristic angular dependence, which is explicitly shown for the high-symmetry planes at temperatures below the flux gap energy.