Topological excitations and the dynamic structure factor of spin liquids on the kagome lattice

Abstract

Recent neutron scattering experiments on the spin-1/2 kagome lattice antiferromagnet ZnCu 3 (OH) 6 Cl 2 (Herbertsmithite) provide the first evidence of fractionalized excitations in a quantum spin liquid state in two spatial dimensions. In contrast to existing theoretical models of both gapped and gapless spin liquids, which give rise to sharp dispersing features in the dynamic structure factor, the measured dynamic structure factor reveals an excitation continuum that is remarkably flat as a function of frequency. Here we show that many experimentally observed features can be explained by the presence of topological vison excitations in a Z 2 spin liquid. These visons form flat bands on the kagome lattice, and thus act as a momentum sink for spin-carrying excitations that are probed by neutron scattering. We compute the dynamic structure factor for two different Z 2 spin liquids and find that our results for one of them are in qualitative agreement with the neutron scattering experiments above a very low energy cutoff, below which the structure factor is probably dominated by impurities.© 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited.