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- Title
Signatures of a Majorana-Fermi surface in the Kitaev magnet Ag<sub>3</sub>LiIr<sub>2</sub>O<sub>6</sub>.
- Authors
Heath, Joshuah T.; Bahrami, Faranak; Lee, Sangyun; Movshovich, Roman; Chen, Xiao; Tafti, Fazel; Bedell, Kevin
- Abstract
Detecting Majorana fermions in experimental realizations of the Kitaev honeycomb model is often complicated by non-trivial interactions inherent to potential spin liquid candidates. In this work, we identify several distinct thermodynamic signatures of massive, itinerant Majorana fermions within the well-established analytical paradigm of Landau-Fermi liquid theory. We find a qualitative and quantitative agreement between the salient features of our Landau-Majorana liquid theory and the Kitaev spin liquid candidate Ag3LiIr2O6. Our study presents strong evidence for a Fermi liquid-like ground state in the fundamental excitations of a honeycomb iridate, and opens new experimental avenues to detect itinerant Majorana fermions in condensed matter systems. While Majorana excitations are often considered to be a cornerstone for proposed quantum devices, their experimental detection has proven to be a significant challenge. Here, the authors theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that the Kitaev candidate material Ag3LiIr2O6 may support a Majorana-Fermi surface, which could potentially serve as a "smoking gun" for a quantum spin liquid ground state through the lens of specific heat data.
- Subjects
QUANTUM spin liquid; MAJORANA fermions; CONDENSED matter; SPECIFIC heat
- Publication
Communications Physics, 2023, Vol 6, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
2399-3650
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/s42005-023-01403-w