Hydrogenic states of monopoles in diluted quantum spin ice

Abstract

We consider the effect of adding quantum dynamics to a classical topological spin liquid, with particular view to how best to detect its presence in experiment. For the Coulomb phase of spin ice, we find quantum effects to be most visible in the gauge-charged monopole excitations. In the presence of weak dilution with nonmagnetic ions we find a particularly crisp phenomenon, namely the emergence of hydrogenic excited states in which a magnetic monopole is bound to a vacancy at various distances. Via a mapping to an analytically tractable single particle problem on the Bethe lattice, we obtain an approximate expression for the dynamic neutron scattering structure factor.