Kane-Lubensky phonons in Maxwell lattice frustrated Mott insulators
Abstract
We show that zero-energy gapless Weyl-line phonons of the Kane-Lubensky's type can arise in the three-dimensional Maxwell lattice frustrated Mott insulators through the magnetopological mechanics. In a pyrochlore antiferromagnet with the spin-lattice coupling, a magnetic field selects the spin state whose lattice distortion generates a P43 32 topological lattice. More crucially, the spin-lattice coupling and the spin configuration cause the bending of the neighbouring bonds, and converts the system into the topological Maxwell lattice. Remarkably, the resulting system is found to host the bulk zero-frequency Weyl-line phonons protected topologically, and these gapless phonons are not Goldstone modes. Unlike the conventional Cph∼ T3 for the Goldstone phonons, these one-dimensional zero-mode manifolds yield a characteristic low-temperature phonon specific heat Cph∼ T2. Our results could find applications in the Cr-based spinel systems, and moreover, we establish a low-energy platform where an extensive number of topological zero-frequency phonons can strongly couple to other degrees of freedom, opening a route to exotic phonon-mediated phenomena.
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BibTeX
@misc{song2026kanelubensky,
title = {{Kane-Lubensky phonons in Maxwell lattice frustrated Mott insulators}},
author = {Hong-Hao Song and Gang v. Chen},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.08262},
eprint = {2609.08262},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.08262},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Kane-Lubensky phonons in Maxwell lattice frustrated Mott insulators
AU - Hong-Hao Song
AU - Gang v. Chen
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.08262
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.08262
AB - We show that zero-energy gapless Weyl-line phonons of the Kane-Lubensky's type can arise in the three-dimensional Maxwell lattice frustrated Mott insulators through the magnetopological mechanics. In a pyrochlore antiferromagnet with the spin-lattice coupling, a magnetic field selects the spin state whose lattice distortion generates a P4_3 32 topological lattice. More crucially, the spin-lattice coupling and the spin configuration cause the bending of the neighbouring bonds, and converts the system into the topological Maxwell lattice. Remarkably, the resulting system is found to host the bulk zero-frequency Weyl-line phonons protected topologically, and these gapless phonons are not Goldstone modes. Unlike the conventional C_ph∼ T^3 for the Goldstone phonons, these one-dimensional zero-mode manifolds yield a characteristic low-temperature phonon specific heat C_ph∼ T^2. Our results could find applications in the Cr-based spinel systems, and moreover, we establish a low-energy platform where an extensive number of topological zero-frequency phonons can strongly couple to other degrees of freedom, opening a route to exotic phonon-mediated phenomena.
ER -