Spin-Orbital Wave Excitations in Orbitally Degenerate Exchange Model with Multipolar Interactions

Abstract

Elementary excitations in the multipole ordered state, which models the phase III in CeB6, are investigated by means of a generalized Holstein-Primakoff formalism. When different kinds of nearest-neighbor exchange interactions between multipoles are comparable to each other, orbital-flip excitations exhibit almost one-dimensional dispersion along the z axis. With high symmetry of the interactions, zero modes appear due to the macroscopic degeneracy of the ground state. The next-nearest-neighbor dipole-dipole interaction, which stabilizes the magnetic order of the phase III in CeB6, lifts the degeneracy and leads to gapfull excitation spectrum. When the octupole-octupole next-nearest-neighbor interaction exists simultaneously, the spectrum shows softening at Γand Z points. These excitations may be probed by neutron scattering and ultrasonic measurements.