Unveiling multipole physics and frustration of icosahedral magnetic quasicrystals

Abstract

Multipolar physics and their hidden orders have been widely discussed in the context of heavy fermions and frustrated magnets. However, despite extensive research, there are few examples of purely multipolar systems in the absence of magnetic dipoles. Here, we show the magnetic behavior of an icosahedral quasicrystal is generally described by multipoles, and in a specific case by pure magnetic octupoles, resulting from the interplay of spin-orbit coupling and crystal field splitting. Importantly, we emphasize that non-crystallographic symmetries of quasicrystals result in multipolar degrees of freedom, in contrast to the conventional crystals. We first classify the characteristics of multipoles and derive the effective spin Hamiltonian. We then explore how frustration and quantum fluctuations induce entangled quantum phases. Our study presents the magnetic icosahedral quasicrystal as a platform for investigating the exotic multipolar physics.