Our research is organized around a central problem: what can the excitation spectrum reveal about the quantum state, microscopic interactions, and emergent degrees of freedom of a material? We pursue this question across several connected directions.
Sharp magnons are not guaranteed. Strong interactions, frustration, dimensionality, and decay channels can redistribute spectral weight into broad continua. We test when these spectra reflect fractionalization and when collective classical or semiclassical dynamics can produce deceptively similar signatures.
Beyond linear spin-wave theory, magnetic excitations can hybridize, form multi-particle bound states, or become unstable. We use spectroscopy and quantitative modeling to identify interaction mechanisms and connect anomalous line shapes to microscopic Hamiltonians.
Rare-earth and transition-metal magnets provide local degrees of freedom that extend beyond simple dipoles. Bond-dependent exchange, crystal-field states, and higher-rank multipoles create new routes to quantum magnetism and unconventional ordered states.
Real materials are never perfectly clean or at zero temperature. We study how quenched disorder, thermal fluctuations, and local structure modify collective dynamics, and how to distinguish intrinsic many-body continua from broadening caused by imperfections.
We treat experiments as quantitative tests of microscopic models. Resolution-aware comparison across fields, temperatures, wave vectors, and complementary probes allows us to refine exchange interactions and assess where a model succeeds or fails.
We develop analysis, simulation, and instrumentation strategies that extract more physical information from limited beam time. This includes multiplexed triple-axis spectroscopy, resolution-aware modeling, and computational tools for large multidimensional datasets.
The group follows an integrated experimental cycle. Each stage informs the next, from selecting a material and refining its microscopic model to designing the decisive measurement.
Grow, select, and characterize crystals whose lattice geometry, anisotropy, and local electronic structure create a well-defined many-body problem.
Measure spin dynamics with neutron scattering and complementary optical, microwave, thermodynamic, and high-field probes.
Compare absolute intensities, dispersions, line shapes, and continua with microscopic calculations and resolution-convolved simulations.
Use model failures and parameter uncertainty to identify the next experiment and target a specific physical question.
Neutrons measure magnetic correlations directly in momentum and energy. The resulting dynamic structure factor provides a stringent, quantitative connection between experiment and models of quantum matter.
Neutrons probe magnetic moments throughout a sample and reveal spatial correlations on atomic length scales.
Inelastic scattering maps where excitations propagate, how long they live, and how spectral weight is redistributed.
Measured cross sections can be placed on an absolute scale and directly compared with calculated structure factors.
Modern instruments generate multidimensional datasets that demand careful reduction, resolution modeling, visualization, and stewardship.
Magnons, spinons, bound states, and their interactions — Quantum Geometry and Transport of Collective Excitations, 2025.
How broad continua and unusual dynamics can emerge outside canonical fractionalized phases.
A general introduction intended for undergraduate and graduate students across STEM fields.
