Damped Dirac magnon in the metallic kagome antiferromagnet FeSn
Seung-Hwan Do, Koji Kaneko, Ryoichi Kajimoto, Kazuya Kamazawa, M. B. Stone, Jiao Lin, Shinichi Itoh, Takatsugu Masuda, German Samolyuk, Elbio Dagotto, William R. Meier, B. C. Sales, H. Miao, A. D. Christianson
Abstract
The kagome lattice is a fertile platform to explore topological excitations with both Fermi-Dirac and Bose-Einstein statistics. While relativistic Dirac fermions and flat bands have been discovered in the electronic structure of kagome metals, the spin excitations have received less attention. Here, we report inelastic neutron scattering studies of the prototypical kagome magnetic metal FeSn. The spectra display well-defined spin waves extending to 120 meV. Above this energy, the spin waves become progressively broadened, reflecting interactions with the Stoner continuum. Using linear spin-wave theory, we determine an effective spin Hamiltonian that reproduces the measured dispersion. This analysis indicates that the Dirac magnon at the $K$ point remarkably occurs on the brink of a region where well-defined spin waves become unobservable. Our results emphasize the influential role of itinerant carriers on the topological spin excitations of metallic kagome magnets.