Phys. Rev. B 66, 064403 (2002) [12 pages]Spin-Peierls phases in pyrochlore antiferromagnetsReceived 18 April 2002; published 2 August 2002 In the highly frustrated pyrochlore magnet spins form a lattice of corner-sharing tetrahedra. We show that the tetrahedral “molecule” at the heart of this structure undergoes a Jahn-Teller distortion when lattice motion is coupled to the antiferromagnetism. We extend this analysis to the full pyrochlore lattice by means of Landau theory and argue that it should exhibit “spin-Peierls” phases with bond order but no spin order. We find a range of Néel phases, with collinear, coplanar, and noncoplanar order. While collinear Néel phases are easiest to generate microscopically, we also exhibit an interaction that gives rise to a coplanar state instead. © 2002 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.66.064403
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.66.064403
PACS:
75.10.Hk, 75.10.Jm
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