Spin waves in the anisotropic fcc kagome antiferromagnet

Abstract

Spin wave calculations demonstrate that the macroscopic continuous degeneracy associated with the two-dimensional kagome Heisenberg spin lattice persists in the case of the stacked fcc structure giving rise to zero energy modes in three dimensions. The addition of an effective local cubic anisotropy is shown to remove this continuous degeneracy and introduce a gap in the spectrum as well as modify the inelastic scattering function $S({\bf q},\omega)$. This scenario supports earlier Monte Carlo simulations which indicate that the phase transition to long range $q=0$ magnetic order is driven to be discontinuous by critical fluctuations associated with the large degeneracy in the absence of anisotropy, but becomes continuous with the addition of anisotropy. The results are relevant to Ir-Mn alloys which are widely used in the magnetic storage industry in thin film form as the antiferromagnetic pinning layer in spin-valve structures.