Unexpected Phenomenology in Particle-Based Ice Absent in Magnetic Spin Ice

Abstract

While particle-based ices are often considered essentially equivalent to magnet-based spin ices, the two differ essentially in frustration and energetics. We show that at equilibrium particle-based ices correspond exactly to spin ices coupled to a background field. In trivial geometries, such a field has no effect, and the two systems are indeed thermodynamically equivalent. In other cases, however, the field controls a richer phenomenology, absent in magnetic ices, and still largely unexplored: ice rule fragility, topological charge transfer, radial polarization, decimation induced disorder, and glassiness.