No Arabic abstract
The classical ground states of the SU(4) Heisenberg model on the face centered cubic lattice constitute a highly degenerate manifold. We explicitly construct all the classical ground states of the model. To describe quantum fluctuations above these classical states, we apply linear flavor-wave theory. At zero temperature, the bosonic flavor waves select the simplest of these SU(4) symmetry breaking states, the four-sublattice ordered state defined by the cubic unit cell of the fcc lattice. Due to geometrical constraints, flavor waves interact along specific planes only, thus rendering the system effectively two dimensional and forbidding ordering at finite temperatures. We argue that longer range interactions generated by quantum fluctuations can shift the transition to finite temperatures.
We identify and discuss the ground state of a quantum magnet on a triangular lattice with bond-dependent Ising-type spin couplings, that is, a triangular analog of the Kitaev honeycomb model. The classical ground-state manifold of the model is spanned by decoupled Ising-type chains, and its accidental degeneracy is due to the frustrated nature of the anisotropic spin couplings. We show how this subextensive degeneracy is lifted by a quantum order-by-disorder mechanism and study the quantum selection of the ground state by treating short-wavelength fluctuations within the linked cluster expansion and by using the complementary spin-wave theory. We find that quantum fluctuations couple next-nearest-neighbor chains through an emergent four-spin interaction, while nearest-neighbor chains remain decoupled. The remaining discrete degeneracy of the ground state is shown to be protected by a hidden symmetry of the model.
We report high resolution neutron scattering measurements on the triangular lattice Mott insulator Na$_x$CrO$_2$ ($x$=1) which has recently been shown to exhibit an unusually broad fluctuating crossover regime extending far below the onset of spin freezing ($T_csim$41K). Our results show that below some crossover temperature ($Tsim0.75T_c$) a small incommensuration develops which helps resolve the spin frustration and drives three-dimensional magnetic order supporting coherent spin wave modes. This incommensuration assisted dimensional crossover suggests that inter-layer frustration is responsible for stabilizing the rare 2D correlated phase above 0.75$T_c$. In contrast to the host compound of 2D cobaltate superconductor such as Na$_x$CoO$_2$ ($xi_c>50$AA), no magnetic long-range order is observed down to 1.5K ($xi_c<16$AA).
In frustrated magnetic systems with competing interactions fluctuations can lift the residual accidental degeneracy. We argue that the state selection may have different outcomes for quantum and thermal order by disorder. As an example, we consider the semiclassical Heisenberg fcc antiferromagnet with only the nearest-neighbor interactions. Zero-point oscillations select the type 3 collinear antiferromagnetic state at T=0. Thermal fluctuations favor instead the type 1 antiferromagnetic structure. The opposite tendencies result in a finite-temperature transition between the two collinear states. Competition between effects of quantum and thermal order by disorder is a general phenomenon and is also realized in the J1-J2 square-lattice antiferromagnet at the critical point J2 = 0.5 J1.
We discuss the role of quantum fluctuations in Heisenberg antiferromagnets on face-centered cubic lattice with small dipolar interaction in which the next-nearest-neighbor exchange coupling dominates over the nearest-neighbor one. It is well known that a collinear magnetic structure which contains (111) ferromagnetic planes arranged antiferromagnetically along one of the space diagonals of the cube is stabilized in this model via order-by-disorder mechanism. On the mean-field level, the dipolar interaction forces spins to lie within (111) planes. By considering 1/S - corrections to the ground state energy, we demonstrate that quantum fluctuations lead to an anisotropy within (111) planes favoring three equivalent directions for the staggered magnetization (e.g., $[11overline{2}]$, $[1overline{2}1]$, and $[overline{2}11]$ directions for (111) plane). Such in-plane anisotropy was obtained experimentally in related materials MnO, $alpha$-MnS, $alpha$-MnSe, EuTe, and EuSe. We find that the order-by-disorder mechanism can contribute significantly to the value of the in-plane anisotropy in EuTe. Magnon spectrum is also derived in the first order in 1/S.
Vanadium dioxide undergoes a first order metal-insulator transition at 340 K. In this work, we develop and carry out state of the art linear scaling DFT calculations refined with non-local dynamical mean-field theory. We identify a complex mechanism, a Peierls-assisted orbital selection Mott instability, which is responsible for the insulating M$_1$ phase, and furthermore survives a moderate degree of disorder.