Is $\mathrm{YbMgGaO_4}$ a spin liquid or a disorder-driven state?

In plain words

$\mathrm{YbMgGaO_4}$ is a triangular-lattice magnet with no detected order and a broad continuum of spin excitations, first read as a spin-liquid signature. Its magnesium and gallium atoms are randomly mixed, which makes the couplings random, and that alone may produce the same data.

Precise statement

In $\mathrm{YbMgGaO_4}$ (effective $S = 1/2$ Yb3+ doublets on a triangular lattice, nearest-neighbor exchange of order 0.1 meV, random Mg/Ga site mixing), determine whether the $T \to 0$ ground state is a quantum spin liquid with fractionalized spinons, a random-singlet (valence-bond glass) state, or a spin glass. An answer names the state with evidence that discriminates the three: the field and temperature scaling of $C$ and $\chi$, ac-susceptibility freezing below 0.1 K, and whether the neutron continuum is reproduced by a disordered model without fractionalization.

What would settle it

Neutron spectra, ac susceptibility below 0.1 K and thermal conductivity on the same crystals, compared quantitatively with simulations of the fitted anisotropic exchange model that include the measured distribution of random couplings.

Status in the literature

Unverified note: it names recent work and was partly written without a live literature search; it awaits a check by an editor.

Zhu et al. (PRL 2017) reproduced the continuum by bond disorder acting on a model whose clean ground state is stripe ordered, Kimchi et al. (PRX 2018) proposed a random-singlet state, and Ma et al. (PRL 2018) found spin-glass freezing in the sister compound $\mathrm{YbZnGaO_4}$.

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