Hydrogenic states of monopoles in diluted quantum spin ice

We consider the effect of adding quantum dynamics to a classical topological spin liquid, with a particular view of how to best detect its presence in experiment. For the Coulomb phase of spin ice, we find quantum effects to be most visible in the gauge-charged monopole excitations. In the presence of weak dilution with nonmagnetic ions we find a particularly crisp phenomenon, namely, the emergence of hydrogenic excited states in which a magnetic monopole is bound to a vacancy at various distances. Via a mapping to an analytically tractable single particle problem on the Bethe lattice, we obtain an approximate expression for the dynamic neutron scattering structure factor.