{
  "abstract": "Spiral spin liquids are magnetic states whose classical ground-state manifold consists of planar incommensurate spin spirals with wave vectors lying on a continuous ring or surface in reciprocal space. The resulting subextensive degeneracy suppresses magnetic long-range order and gives rise to liquid-like behavior. Despite numerous material realizations and theoretical investigations, the structure of low-temperature spin configurations of spin-isotropic Heisenberg spiral spin liquids has remained poorly understood. Here, we classify and characterize the classical topological defects supported by these systems. We uncover a rich family of vortex types involving concerted windings of spin directions, spiral-plane normals, and wave-vector orientations, yielding a $\\mathbb{Z} \\times \\mathbb{Z}_2$ classification. Remarkably, the elementary defects are half-vortices carrying fractional $2π$ windings in both spin and momentum space and obey fusion rules resembling to those of Ising anyons. Large-scale classical simulations of a square-lattice spiral spin liquid reveal that these vortices are dense in the spiral-spin-liquid regime, and bind tightly below an order-by-disorder phase transition, eventually fusing to vacuum.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2609.15941",
  "author_total": 3,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Cecilie Glittum"
    },
    {
      "name": "Han Yan"
    },
    {
      "name": "Johannes Reuther"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6q0xdrv1109pa.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2609.15941",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "6q0xdrv1109pa",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.15941",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cond-mat.stat-mech"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "cond-mat.str-el"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.15941",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-14",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6q0xdrv1109pa.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:21:25Z",
      "native_id": "2609.15941",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.15941"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:cond-mat.str-el",
      "subfield": "condensed-matter"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:cond-mat.stat-mech",
      "subfield": "statistical-nonlinear"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Fractional vortices in a spin-isotropic spiral spin liquid",
  "title_text": "Fractional vortices in a spin-isotropic spiral spin liquid",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:21:25Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6q0xdrv1109pa",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}