- Letter
Quantum coherence of muons in copper (II) acetate
Phys. Rev. B 113, L121104 – Published 13 March, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/x4v3-d91n
Abstract
We report muon-spin relaxation () measurements of copper acetate [], a model spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic dimer chain with an alternation parameter = 0.001. Zero-field data collected from 2 to 200 K revealed an oscillatory asymmetry that was analyzed using a model based on the muon-stopping site determined by density-functional theory calculations. Below 50 K, the fitted parameters capture spin dynamics characteristic of the singlet ground state, while at higher temperatures, an additional relaxation was observed due to the thermally populated triplet state, affecting the local magnetic field around the muon-stopping site. The temperature dependence of the fitting parameters was found to exhibit characteristics similar to those of a bipartite entanglement measure, “distance between the states,” obtained from the magnetic susceptibility data. Longitudinal-field measurements reveal field-dependent relaxation at field values much lower than the field values required to close the spin singlet-triplet gap, emphasizing the importance of quantum fluctuations in the spin dynamics of the dimerized copper acetate.