• Wang, Z.; Schmidt, M.; Bera, A.K.; Islam, A.T.M.N.; Lake, B.; Loidl, A.; Deisenhofer, J.: Spinon confinement in the one-dimensional Ising-like antiferromagnet SrCo2V2O8. Physical Review B 91 (2015), p. 140404/1-4

10.1103/PhysRevB.91.140404
Open Access Version

Abstract:
For quasi-one-dimensional quantum spin systems theory predicts the occurrence of a confinement of spinon excitation due to interchain couplings. Here we investigate the system SrCo2V2O8, a realization of the weakly coupled Ising-like XXZ antiferromagnetic chains, by terahertz spectroscopy with and without applied magnetic field. At low temperatures a series of excitations is observed, which split in a Zeeman-like fashion in an applied magnetic field. These magnetic excitations are identified as the theoretically predicted spinon-pair excitations. Using a one-dimensional Schr¨odinger equation with a linear confinement potential imposed by weak interchain couplings, the hierarchy of the confined spinons can be fully described.