Order-by-disorder without quantum zero-point fluctuations in the pyrochlore Heisenberg ferromagnet with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions

Order-by-disorder, whereby fluctuations lift an accidental classical ground state degeneracy to stabilize a subset of ordered states, is a recurrent and prominent theme in the field of frustrated magnetism where magnetic moments, or spins, are subject to competing interactions. Thus far, such a phenomenon has been discussed in systems where the quantum ground state is not a product state. In this circumstance, both thermal and quantum fluctuations act to lift the accidental classical degeneracy, begging the question whether one mechanism of order-by-disorder is possible without the other. In this paper, we present results exposing a novel route to order-by-disorder, without quantum zero-point fluctuations, in a family of ferromagnetic Heisenberg materials with the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction as the leading perturbation. We prove that any colinear ferromagnetic state is an exact eigenstate, even in the presence of the anisotropic DM interaction, while thermal fluctuations give rise to a preference in the magnetization direction. Here, we present in detail an example of the pyrochlore Heisenberg ferromagnet with DM interactions. Using both linear spin-wave theory and classical Monte Carlo simulations, we find that the magnetization can spontaneously rotate at intermediate temperature(s) within the colinear ferromagnetic phase when the DM interaction is large. Additionally, we find that in the large DM regime, the ferromagnetic ground state becomes unstable within the framework of non-linear spin-wave theory. Our results show that thermal order-by-disorder is possible even in the absence of quantum zero-point fluctuations.
Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures