Magnetic properties of the coupled ladder system MgV$_2$O$_5$

TL;DR

This study investigates the magnetic properties of MgV$_2$O$_5$, revealing a small energy gap and predicting incommensurate spin fluctuations based on the frustrated coupled ladder system's phase diagram.

Contribution

The paper provides the first magnetic susceptibility measurements of MgV$_2$O$_5$ and explains its small energy gap through the phase diagram of a frustrated ladder system.

Findings

Energy gap of about 15 K in MgV$_2$O$_5$

Comparison with CaV$_2$O$_5$ shows much smaller gap

Prediction of incommensurate dynamic spin fluctuations

Abstract

We present magnetic susceptibility measurements on MgV$_2$O$_5$, a compound in which the vanadium oxide planes have the same topology as in CaV$_2$O$_5$. The most striking property is that there is an energy gap of about 15 K, much smaller than in CaV$_2$O$_5$, where the values reported are of the order of 500 K. We show that this may be understood naturally in terms of the phase diagram of the frustrated, coupled ladder system. This analysis leads to the prediction that MgV$_2$O$_5$ should have incommensurate dynamic spin fluctuations.