The study of interacting spin systems is of fundamental importance for modern condensed matter physics. On frustrated lattices, magnetic exchange interactions cannot be simultaneously satisfied, and often give rise to competing exotic ground states 1 . The frustrated 2D ShastrySutherland lattice 2 realized by SrCu 2 (BO 3 ) 2 3 is an important test to our understanding of quantum magnetism. It was constructed to have an exactly solvable 2-spin dimer singlet ground state within a certain range of exchange parameters and frustration. While the exact dimer state and the antiferromagnetic order at both ends of the phase diagram are well known, the ground state and spin correlations in the intermediate frustration range have been widely debated 2-12 . We report here the first experimental identification of the conjectured plaquette singlet intermediate phase in SrCu 2 (BO 3 ) 2 . It is observed by inelastic neutron scattering after pressure tuning at 21.5 kbar. This gapped plaquette singlet state with strong 4-spin correlations leads to a transition to an ordered Néel state above 40 kbar, which can realize a deconfined quantum critical point.In the field of quantum magnetism, geometrically frustrated lattices generally imply major difficulties in analytical and numerical studies. For very few particular topologies however, it has been shown that the ground state, at least, can be calculated exactly as for the Majumdar-Gosh model 13 that solves the J 1 -J 2 zigzag chain when J 1 = 2J 2 . In 2D, the Shastry-Sutherland model 2 consisting of an orthogonal dimer network of spin S=1/2 was developed in order to be exactly solvable. For an inter-dimer J to intra-dimer J exchange ratio α ≡ J /J ≤ 0.5 the ground state is a product of singlets on the strong bond J. Numerical calculations have further shown that this remains valid up to α ≤∼ 0.7 and for small values of 3D couplings J between dimer layers. At the other end, for ∼ 0.9 ≤ α ≤ ∞ the system approaches the well known 2D square lattice, which is antiferromagnetically (AFM) ordered, albeit with significant quantum fluctuations that are believed to include resonating singlet correlations resulting in fractional excitations 14 . The phase diagram of the Shastry-Sutherland model, both with and without applied magnetic field, has been intensively studied by numerous theoretical and numerical approaches 3 . In the presence of magnetic field, magnetization plateaus at fractional values of the saturation magnetization corresponding to Mott insulator phases of dimer states, as well as possible superfluid and supersolid phases have been extensively studied 6,15,16 . At zero field, the main unsolved issue is the existence and nature arXiv:1603.02039v1 [cond-mat.str-el]

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