Samples of the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu were brought to Earth by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. We analyzed seventeen Ryugu samples measuring 1-8 mm. CO 2 -bearing water inclusions are present within a pyrrhotite crystal, indicating that Ryugu’s parent asteroid formed in the outer Solar System. The samples contain low abundances of materials that formed at high temperatures, such as chondrules and Ca, Al-rich inclusions. The samples are rich in phyllosilicates and carbonates, which formed by aqueous alteration reactions at low temperature, high pH, and water/rock ratios < 1 (by mass). Less altered fragments contain olivine, pyroxene, amorphous silicates, calcite, and phosphide. Numerical simulations, based on the mineralogical and physical properties of the samples, indicate Ryugu’s parent body formed ~ 2 million years after the beginning of Solar System formation.

Using magnetic, thermal, and neutron measurements on single-crystal samples, we show that Ba3CoSb2O9 is a spin-1/2 triangular-lattice antiferromagnet with the c axis as the magnetic easy axis and two magnetic phase transitions bracketing an intermediate up-up-down phase in magnetic field applied along the c axis. A pronounced extensive neutron-scattering continuum above spin-wave excitations, observed below T(N), implies that the system is in close proximity to one of two spin-liquid states that have been predicted for a 2D triangular lattice.

Elementary excitations of the S = 1/2 one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet KCuGaF6 with exchange constant J/kB = 103 K were investigated by high-frequency ESR measurements combined with a pulsed high magnetic field. When an external magnetic field H is applied in KCuGaF6, a staggered magnetic field h is induced perpendicular to H owing to the staggered g tensor and the Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya (DM) interaction with an alternating D vector. Consequently, KCuGaF6 in a magnetic field is represented by the quantum sine-Gordon (SG) model. We observed many resonance modes including a soliton resonance, breathers, interbreather transitions and two-breather excitation. Their resonance conditions are beautifully described by the quantum SG field theory with one adjustable parameter cs = h/H. To investigate the relationship between the Curie term due to the DM interaction and the proportional coefficient cs, magnetic susceptibility measurements were also performed varying the external field direction.