Magnetoelastic study of the incommensurate phase in TiOCl

Trieste, Italia

Workshop; Workshop on Principles and Design of Strongly Correlated Electronic Systems; 2010

ICTP

We present a phase diagram for the spin-Peierls compound TiOCl based on an XY model coupled to adiabatic phonons. It is obtained through a minimization of the free energy with respect to the lattice distortions at different temperatures. We are able to find the experimental phase transitions and obtain a transition between a sinusoidal pattern and a soliton lattice for the distortions inside the incommensurate phase. Furthermore, we calculate spin-spin correlations in the incommensurate phase and compare them with the ones obtained through DMRG calculations in a Heisenberg model with modulated exchange couplings.