Magneto-acoustic study near the quantum critical point of the frustrated quantum antiferromagnet Cs2CuCl4

Abstract

Magneto-acoustic investigations of the frustrated triangular-lattice antiferromagnet Cs2CuCl4 were performed for the longitudinal modes c11 and c33 in magnetic fields along the a-axis. The temperature dependence of the sound velocity at zero field shows a mild softening at low temperature and displays a small kink-like anomaly at TN. Isothermal measurements at T < TN of the sound attenuation α reveal two closely spaced features of different characters on approaching the material's quantum-critical point (QCP) at Bs ≈ 8.5 T for B || a. The peak at slightly lower fields remains sharp down to the lowest temperature and can be attributed to the ordering temperature TN(B). The second anomaly, which is rounded and which becomes reduced in size upon cooling, is assigned to the material's spin-liquid properties preceding the long-range antiferromagnetic ordering with decreasing temperature. These two features merge upon cooling suggesting a coincidence at the QCP. The elastic constant at lowest temperatures of our experiment at 32 mK can be well described by a Landau free energy model with a very small magnetoelastic coupling constant G/kB ≈ 2.8 K. The applicability of this classical model indicates the existence of a small gap in the magnetic excitation spectrum which drives the system away from quantum criticality.