Chiral-like critical behavior in the antiferromagnet cobalt glycerolate.
Critical exponents closely matching those of the N=2 chiral universality class have been obtained for the layered magnetic system cobalt glycerolate using muon spin relaxation. This class was originally introduced to represent geometrically frustrated triangular stacked-layer XY magnets with chiral noncollinear spin structures. Since the present magnetic system is a canted XY system without geometrical frustration or chiral degeneracy, the results indicate that the order parameter for canting in this system plays a similar role to the chiral order parameter in the geometrically frustrated systems, strongly suggesting that both types of noncollinear system share the same universality class.
Pratt
F L
FL
ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
Baker
P J
PJ
Blundell
S J
SJ
Lancaster
T
T
Green
M A
MA
Kurmoo
M
M