Magnetic structure of Gd2Ti2O7

We attempt to solve the magnetic structure of the gadolinium analog of "spin-ice" using a mixture of experimental and theoretical assumptions. The eventual predictions are essentially consistent with both the Mossbauer and neutron measurements but are unrelated to previous proposals. We find two possible distinct states, one of which is coplanar and the other is fully three-dimensional. We predict that close to the initial transition the preferred state is coplanar, but that at the lowest temperature the ground state becomes fully three-dimensional. Unfortunately, the energetics are presumed to be complicated. There is a dominant nearest-neighbor Heisenberg interaction, but then a compromise solution for lifting the final degeneracy resulting from a competition between second-neighbor Heisenberg interactions and direct dipolar interactions on similar energy scales.