Credit: ORNL/Genevieve Martin
Illustration shows the one dimensional Yb ion chain in the quantum magnet Yb2Pt2Pb. The Yb orbitals are depicted as the iso-surfaces, and the green arrows indicate the antiferromagnetically aligned Yb magnetic moments. The particular overlap of the orbitals allows the Yb moments to hop between the nearest and next nearest neighbors along the chain direction, resulting in the two and four spinon excitations.