Spin-lattice Coupling in U(1) Quantum Spin Liquids

Abstract

Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are exotic phases with intrinsic massive entanglements. Instead of microscopic spins, fractionalized particles and gauge fluctuations are emergent, revealing QSLs' exotic natures. Quantum spins with strong spin-orbit coupling on a pyrchlore lattice, for example Pr2Zr2O7, are suggested to host a U(1) QSL with emergent photons, gapless excitations without breaking any symmetries, as well as emergent monopoles. One of the key issues in QSLs is an interplay between emergent degrees of freedom of QSLs and conventional degrees of freedom, and we investigate the interplay by constructing a general theory of spin-lattice coupling in U(1) QSLs. We find that the coupling induces characteristic interplay between phonons and photons. For example, photons become qualitatively more stable than phonons at low temperature. We also propose mechanisms to detect emergent photons in experiments such as sound attenuation and thermal transport relying on spin-lattice coupling in U(1) QSLs.