Spiral spin structure in the Heisenberg pyrochlore magnet CdCrO

Matsuda, Masaaki; Takeda, Masayasu  ; Nakamura, Mitsutaka   ; Kakurai, Kazuhisa; Osawa, Akira*; Lelivre-Berna, E.*; Chung, J.-H.*; Ueda, Hiroaki*; Takagi, Hidenori*; Lee, S.-H.*

A frustrated spinel CdCrO undergoes a three-dimensional spin-Peierls transition at = 7.8 K from a cubic paramagnetic to a tetragonal Nel state. The Nel state has a spiral magnetic structure with a characteristic wave vector of when the axis elongated. Here we report our spherical neutron polarimetry experiments to investigate the spiral spin structure in detail. Our results indicate that the spins lie in the plane perpendicular to the direction of the spiral modulation. We also found that the spiral structure in the plane is elliptical with the -component larger by 24% than the -component, suggesting a strong coupling between the magnetic structure and structural distortion. Unpolarized neutron diffraction under an external magnetic field has also been performed. The magnetic field dependence suggests existence of magnetic anisotropy in the Nel state, which is consistent with our previous inelastic studies.