Magnetization plateaus in generalized Shastry-Sutherland models

We study an anisotropic Heisenberg antiferromagnet with ferromagnetic transverse spin exchange using exact quantum Monte Carlo methods. Such a model is relevant to a class of rare earth tetraboride materials that display a range of magnetization plateaus under applied magnetic field. The layered arr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Wierschem, Keola, Sengupta, Pinaki
Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/97410
http://hdl.handle.net/10220/20359
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:We study an anisotropic Heisenberg antiferromagnet with ferromagnetic transverse spin exchange using exact quantum Monte Carlo methods. Such a model is relevant to a class of rare earth tetraboride materials that display a range of magnetization plateaus under applied magnetic field. The layered arrangement of magnetic ions in these materials is topologically equivalent to the Shastry-Sutherland lattice. In this frustrated geometry, we study the interplay of next-nearest neighbor interactions in stabilizing a plateau at half the saturation magnetization (or 1/2 plateau). We also show hysteresis-like behavior at the onset of the 1/3 plateau.