Magnetic excitations of perovskite rare-earth nickelates: RNiO$_3$

Abstract: The perovskite nickelates RNiO$_3$ (R: rare-earth) have been studied as potential multiferroic compounds. A certain degree of charge disproportionation in the Ni ions has been confirmed by high resolution synchrotron power diffraction: instead of the nominal Ni$^{3+}$ valence, they can have the mixed-valence state Ni$^{(3-\delta)+}$ and Ni$^{(3+\delta)+}$, though agreement has not been reached on the precise value of $\delta$ (e.g. for NdNiO$_3$, $\delta=0.0$ and $\delta=0.29$ were reported). Also, the magnetic ground state is not yet clear: collinear and non-collinear Ni-O magnetic structures have been proposed to explain neutron diffraction and soft X-ray resonant sccattering results in these compounds, and more recently a canted antiferromagnetic spin arrangement was proposed on the basis of magnetic susceptibility measurements. This scenario is reminiscent of the situation in the half-doped manganites. In order to gain insight into the ground state of these compounds, we studied the magnetic excitations of some of the different phases proposed, using a localized spin model for a simplified spin chain which could describe these compounds. We first analize the stability of the collinear, orthogonal, and intermediate phases in the classical case. We then explore the quantum ground state indirectly, calculating the spin excitations obtained for each phase, using the Holstein-Primakoff transformation and the linear spin-wave approximation. For the collinear and orthogonal ($\theta=\pi/2$) phases, we predict differences in the magnon spectrum which would allow to distinguish between them in future inelastic neutron scattering experiments.