Quantum spin liquids can emerge in frustrated magnets where quantum fluctuations prevent long-range order. Seifert et al. show that spin-lattice couplings can relieve magnetic frustration and destabilise 2D gapless quantum spin liquid states with fractionalised excitations, analogous to the 1D spin-Peierls instability.
- Urban F. P. Seifert
- Josef Willsher
- Johannes Knolle