Magnetic excitations in the Kitaev material Na$_2$IrO$_3$ studied by neutron scattering
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arXiv
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| Auteurs principaux: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866918372151656448 |
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| author | Bertin, Alexandre Zhao, Hengdi Cao, Gang Piovano, Andrea Steffens, Paul Ivanov, Alexandre Braden, Markus |
| author_facet | Bertin, Alexandre Zhao, Hengdi Cao, Gang Piovano, Andrea Steffens, Paul Ivanov, Alexandre Braden, Markus |
| contents | Inelastic neutron scattering experiments with a large set of comounted Na$_2$IrO$_3$ crystals reveal the low-energy magnon dispersion in this candidate material for Kitaev physics. The magnon gap amounts to 1.7(1) meV and can be interpreted similarly to the sister compound $α$-RuCl$_{3}$ to stem from the zone boundaries in the antiferromagnetic zigzag structure. The neutron experiments find no evidence for low-energy excitations with ferromagnetic character, which contrasts to the findings in $α$-RuCl$_{3}$. Our results are consistent with a recently proposed microscopic model that involves an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg nearest-neighbor exchange in Na$_2$IrO$_3$ in contrast to the ferromagnetic one considered for $α$-RuCl$_{3}$. Although the magnetic response shows the signatures of bond-directional anisotropy in both materials the different relative signs of Kitaev and Heisenberg interaction result in different deviations from the initial Kitaev model. Low-energy ferromagnetic fluctuations cannot be considered as a fingerprint of ferromagnetic Kitaev interaction. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_14563 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Magnetic excitations in the Kitaev material Na$_2$IrO$_3$ studied by neutron scattering Bertin, Alexandre Zhao, Hengdi Cao, Gang Piovano, Andrea Steffens, Paul Ivanov, Alexandre Braden, Markus Strongly Correlated Electrons Inelastic neutron scattering experiments with a large set of comounted Na$_2$IrO$_3$ crystals reveal the low-energy magnon dispersion in this candidate material for Kitaev physics. The magnon gap amounts to 1.7(1) meV and can be interpreted similarly to the sister compound $α$-RuCl$_{3}$ to stem from the zone boundaries in the antiferromagnetic zigzag structure. The neutron experiments find no evidence for low-energy excitations with ferromagnetic character, which contrasts to the findings in $α$-RuCl$_{3}$. Our results are consistent with a recently proposed microscopic model that involves an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg nearest-neighbor exchange in Na$_2$IrO$_3$ in contrast to the ferromagnetic one considered for $α$-RuCl$_{3}$. Although the magnetic response shows the signatures of bond-directional anisotropy in both materials the different relative signs of Kitaev and Heisenberg interaction result in different deviations from the initial Kitaev model. Low-energy ferromagnetic fluctuations cannot be considered as a fingerprint of ferromagnetic Kitaev interaction. |
| title | Magnetic excitations in the Kitaev material Na$_2$IrO$_3$ studied by neutron scattering |
| topic | Strongly Correlated Electrons |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.14563 |