Spin Dynamics of the Elemental Quantum Spin Liquid beta-Mn

The beta-phase of manganese metal is the only form which is non-magnetic at all temperatures and has been classified as an elemental metallic quantum spin liquid. This is thought to be due to the fact that the Mn spins are connected by interlocking 2d Ising triangular planes normal to (111) cubic directions. However, the spin-correlations in beta-Mn have never been properly measured, since this requires large incident energies with which to cover the massive spin-fluctuation bandwidth. Previous attempts to measure the full integrated S(Q) on HET were hampered by restrictive detector coverage and low resolution. We propose here to use the MAPS spectrometer to measure the magnetic S(Q) of pure beta-Mn in order to validate our spin-structure model, derived from single crystal Co-doped samples. We will require 2 days on MAPS to complete this study.