Field control of quasiparticle decay in a quantum antiferromagnet

Shunsuke Hasegawa, Hodaka Kikuchi, Shinichiro Asai, Zijun Wei, Barry Winn, Gabriele Sala, Shinichi Itoh and Takatsugu Masuda ()
Additional contact information
Shunsuke Hasegawa: The University of Tokyo
Hodaka Kikuchi: The University of Tokyo
Shinichiro Asai: The University of Tokyo
Zijun Wei: The University of Tokyo
Barry Winn: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Gabriele Sala: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Shinichi Itoh: High Energy Accelerator Research Organization
Takatsugu Masuda: The University of Tokyo

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Dynamics in a quantum material is described by quantized collective motion: a quasiparticle. The single-quasiparticle description is useful for a basic understanding of the system, whereas a phenomenon beyond the simple description such as quasiparticle decay which affects the current carried by the quasiparticle is an intriguing topic. The instability of the quasiparticle is phenomenologically determined by the magnitude of the repulsive interaction between a single quasiparticle and the two-quasiparticle continuum. Although the phenomenon has been studied in several materials, thermodynamic tuning of the quasiparticle decay in a single material has not yet been investigated. Here we show, by using neutron scattering, magnetic field control of the magnon decay in a quantum antiferromagnet RbFeCl3, where the interaction between the magnon and continuum is tuned by the field. At low fields where the interaction is small, the single magnon decay process is observed. In contrast, at high fields where the interaction exceeds a critical magnitude, the magnon is pushed downwards in energy and its lifetime increases. Our study demonstrates that field control of quasiparticle decay is possible in the system where the two-quasiparticle continuum covers wide momentum-energy space, and the phenomenon of the magnon avoiding decay is ubiquitous.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44435-0 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-44435-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44435-0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().