Spin order and orbital disorder in LaTiO3

K. Kikoin, O. Entin-Wohlman, V. Fleurov*, A. Aharony

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

A mechanism for the removal of orbital degeneracy in LaTiO3 is proposed. Assuming an antiferromagnetic spin ordering (presumably induced by some deviations from the fully symmetric Kugel-Khomskii (KK) model Hamiltonian), we show that the two-magnon excitations play a crucial role in the formation of the orbital liquid. The strongly damped orbital excitations (orbitons) merge into a common continuum with the spin excitations. As a result, the orbital dynamics do modify the stiffness of the spin waves but do not participate as a separate branch of excitations in the low-temperature thermodynamics. Therefore, the direct experimental observation of the orbital dynamics at low temperatures is hardly possible.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)346-347
Number of pages2
JournalJournal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials
Volume272-276
Issue numberI
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2004

Keywords

  • Magnetic oxide
  • Orbital liquid
  • Titanate

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