EXEQ and InEXEQ: software tools for experiment planning at the Extreme Environment Diffractometer.

The Extreme Environment Diffractometer was a neutron time-of-flight instrument equipped with a constant-field hybrid magnet providing magnetic fields up to 26 T. The magnet infrastructure and sample environment imposed limitations on the geometry of the experiment, making it necessary to plan the experiment with care. EXEQ is the software tool developed to allow users of the instrument to find the optimal sample orientation for their diffraction experiment. InEXEQ fulfilled the same role for the inelastic neutron scattering experiments. The source code of the software is licensed under the GNU General Public Licence 3, allowing it to be used by other facilities and adapted for use on other instruments.

Anisotropic effect of a magnetic field on the neutron spin resonance in FeSe.

We use inelastic neutron scattering to study the effect of a magnetic field on the neutron spin resonance (E r = 3.6 meV) of superconducting FeSe (T c = 9 K). While a field aligned along the in-plane direction broadens and suppresses the resonance, a c-axis aligned field does so much more efficiently, consistent with the anisotropic field-induced suppression of the superfluid density from the heat capacity measurements. These results suggest that the resonance in FeSe is associated with the superconducting electrons arising from orbital selective quasiparticle excitations between the hole and electron Fermi surfaces.

Dipolar antiferromagnetism and quantum criticality in LiErF4.

Magnetism has been predicted to occur in systems in which dipolar interactions dominate exchange. We present neutron scattering, specific heat, and magnetic susceptibility data for LiErF(4), establishing it as a model dipolar-coupled antiferromagnet with planar spin-anisotropy and a quantum phase transition in applied field H(c|| = 4.0 ± 0.1 kilo-oersteds. We discovered non-mean-field critical scaling for the classical phase transition at the antiferromagnetic transition temperature that is consistent with the two-dimensional XY/h(4) universality class; in accord with this, the quantum phase transition at H(c) exhibits three-dimensional classical behavior. The effective dimensional reduction may be a consequence of the intrinsic frustrated nature of the dipolar interaction, which strengthens the role of fluctuations.

Solitonic lattice and Yukawa forces in the rare-earth orthoferrite TbFeO3.

The random fluctuations of spins give rise to many interesting physical phenomena, such as the 'order-from-disorder' arising in frustrated magnets and unconventional Cooper pairing in magnetic superconductors. Here we show that the exchange of spin waves between extended topological defects, such as domain walls, can result in novel magnetic states. We report the discovery of an unusual incommensurate phase in the orthoferrite TbFeO(3) using neutron diffraction under an applied magnetic field. The magnetic modulation has a very long period of 340 Å at 3 K and exhibits an anomalously large number of higher-order harmonics. These domain walls are formed by Ising-like Tb spins. They interact by exchanging magnons propagating through the Fe magnetic sublattice. The resulting force between the domain walls has a rather long range that determines the period of the incommensurate state and is analogous to the pion-mediated Yukawa interaction between protons and neutrons in nuclei.