Condensed Matter Seminars

Frustrated magnets are models of strongly interacting systems. Frustration reveals itself through a vast degeneracy of the classical ground state of a magnet and is responsible for a large number of soft modes that destroy magnetic order. Possible alternative phases that could emerge in place of the Neel state are the valence-bond solid, which breaks some lattice symmetry, and the valence-bond liquid, which has no broken symmetries yet differs from a paramagnet by the existence of a hidden topological order. We have recently found examples of valence-bond liquids and solids in a study of almost classical frustrated antiferromagnets on the pyrochlore lattice and its planar analogs.