Spin phonon induced colinear order and magnetization plateaus in triangular and kagome antiferromagnets. Applications to CuFeO_2

by Fa Wang and Ashvin Vishwanath

Frustration, defined as a large degeneracy of ground states, is bound to be lifted by real world complications. In this paper, the authors propose that phonons, generally neglected in most studies of frustrated magnets, may turn out to be an important frustration relieving mechanism. Perhaps their strongest argument in suport of this thesis is their demonstration that coupling spins to Einstein phonons can explain the stability of an unexpected colinear magnetic ordering in the triangular lattice antiferromagnet CuFeO_2 and the existence of magnetization plateaus.