Continuum excitation and pseudospin wave in quantum spin-liquid and quadrupole ordered states of TbTiO

Kadowaki, Hiroaki*; Wakita, Mika*; Fk, B.*; Ollivier, J.*; Kawamura, Seiko; Nakajima, Kenji; Takatsu, Hiroshi*; Tamai, Mototake*

Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 87(6), p.064704_1 - 064704_6, 2018/06

https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.87.064704

The ground states of the frustrated pyrochlore oxide TbTiO have been studied by inelastic neutron scattering experiments. Three single-crystal samples are investigated; one shows no phase transition (), being a putative quantum spin-liquid (QSL), and the other two () show electric quadrupole ordering (QO) below K. The QSL sample shows continuum excitation spectra with an energy scale 0.1 meV as well as energy-resolution-limited (nominally) elastic scattering. As is increased, pseudospin wave of the QO state emerges from this continuum excitation, which agrees with that of powder samples and consequently verifies good control for the present single crystal samples.