Magnons in the fan phase of anisotropic frustrated antiferromagnets

Abstract

Elementary excitations spectrum of the fan phase of anisotropic frustrated antiferromagnets is discussed analytically. In the linear spin-wave approximation, the spectrum is determined by the Hamiltonian, including normal, anomalous, and umklapp terms. The latter mix states with momenta which differ by two modulation vectors of the fan structure. This mixing leads to essential rearrangement of the low-energy part of the spectrum, which is shown to consist of a gapless phason branch with linear dispersion and a gapped “optical” branch, which corresponds to the fan structure amplitude oscillations. In the high-energy part of the spectrum, the effect of the umklapps is negligible, and the excitations are similar to the magnons of the fully polarized phase.