ESR study of the spin ladder with uniform Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

Abstract

Evolution of the ESR absorption in a strong-leg spin ladder magnet (C$_7$H$_{10}$N$_2$)$_2$CuBr$_4$ (abbreviated as DIMPY) is studied from 300K to 400mK. Temperature dependence of the ESR relaxation follows a staircase of crossovers between different relaxation regimes. We ague that the main mechanism of ESR line broadening in DIMPY is uniform Dzyaloshinskii-Moria interaction ($|\vec{D}|=0.20$K) with an effective longitudinal component along an exchange bond of Cu ions within the legs resulting from the low crystal symmetry of DIMPY and nontrivial orbital ordering. The same Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction results in the lifting of the triplet excitation degeneracy, revealed through the weak splitting of the ESR absorption at low temperatures.