Abstract
Spin glasses are systems whose magnetic moments freeze at low temperature into random orientations without long-range order1. It is generally accepted that both frustration and disorder are essential ingredients in all spin glasses, so it was surprising that PrAu2Si2, a stoichiometric compound with a well-ordered crystal structure, was reported2 to show spin-glass freezing. Here, we report on inelastic neutron scattering measurements of crystal-field excitations, which show that PrAu2Si2 has a singlet ground state and that the exchange coupling is very close to the critical value to induce magnetic order. We propose that spin-glass freezing results from dynamic fluctuations of the crystal-field levels that destabilize the induced moments and frustrate the development of long-range magnetic correlations. This novel mechanism for producing a frustrated ground state could provide a method of testing the concept of ‘avoided criticality’ in glassy systems.
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Acknowledgements
We thank A. Murani and R. Stewart for scientific discussions and assistance with the ILL experiments. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy Office of Science, under contract No DE-AC02-06CH11357. R.T.M. is also supported by Research Enhancement Development at UNC.
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This project was planned by E.A.G., in collaboration with R.O. and B.D.R. Neutron experiments were carried out by E.A.G., R.O., B.D.R., R.T.M., D.T.A. and M.K., with samples produced by R.T.M. and data analysis by E.A.G. E.A.G. and R.O. wrote the paper after extensive discussions with the other coauthors.
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Goremychkin, E., Osborn, R., Rainford, B. et al. Spin-glass order induced by dynamic frustration. Nature Phys 4, 766–770 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1028
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys1028
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