Torque anomalies at magnetization plateaux in quantum magnets with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions

We investigate the effect of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions on torque measurements of quantum magnets with magnetization plateaux in the context of a frustrated spin-1/2 ladder. Using extensive DMRG simulations, we show that the DM contribution to the torque is peaked at the critical fields, and that the total torque is non-monotonous if the DM interaction is large enough compared to the g-tensor anisotropy. More remarkably, if the DM vectors point in a principal direction of the g-tensor, torque measurements close to this direction will show well-defined peaks even for small DM interaction, leading to a very sensitive way to detect the critical fields. We propose to test this effect in the two-dimensional plateau system SrCu2(BO3)(2). Copyright (C) EPLA, 2009