Ordering and partial ordering in holmium titanate and related systems

Abstract

We take another look at two compounds which have been discussed as possible realizations of ``spin ice'', namely holmium titanate and dysprosium titanate. As we have earlier observed, holmium titanate does not display ice-like behaviour at low temperatures because the long ranged dipolar interactions between spins are strong compared to the nearest neighbour interactions. We show, analytically, that the true ground state of this system must be fully ordered, but simulations only reach partially ordered states because there are infinite energy barriers separating these from the true ground state. We also show that the true ground state of our model of dysprosium titanate is also fully ordered, and offer some explanations as to why simulations and experiments show ice-like behaviour. We discuss the effect on these systems of an applied magnetic field. Finally, we discuss several other models which show similar partial or full ordering in their ground states, including the well known Ising model on the fcc lattice.