Hidden glassy behaviors in an ideal Heisenberg Kagom\'{e} antiferromagnet

TL;DR

This study reveals that in an ideal Heisenberg Kagome antiferromagnet, planar spins exhibit glass-like behavior at very low temperatures driven by spin-nematic fluctuations, despite the system remaining disordered overall.

Contribution

It uncovers a novel glassy transition in planar spins of an ideal Kagome antiferromagnet caused by intrinsic spin-nematic fluctuations, not disorder.

Findings

Planar spins show glass-like transition at T~0.003J.

Glassiness driven by spin-nematic fluctuations, not disorder.

System remains disordered down to zero temperature.

Abstract

Dynamics of classical Heisenberg spins, ${\bf S}_i=({\bf s}_i,S_{iz})$, on the Kagom\'{e} lattice has been studied. An ideal Heisenberg Kagom\'{e} antiferromagnet is known to remain disordered down to T=0 due to the macroscopic degeneracy of the ground state. Through the study, however, we find that ${\bf S}_i$ and their planar components ${\bf s}_i$ behave in a qualitatively different way and especially planar spins (${\bf s}_i$) show the exotic glass-like transition in the very low temperature $T\sim 0.003J$ ($J$: spin exchange). The glassy behaviors of ${\bf s}_i$ would be found to be driven by the spin-nematic fluctuations, different from ordinary spin glasses by disorders or anisotropies.