No Arabic abstract
The frustrated XY model on the honeycomb lattice has drawn lots of attentions because of the potential emergence of chiral spin liquid (CSL) with the increasing of frustrations or competing interactions. In this work, we study the extended spin-$frac{1}{2}$ XY model with nearest-neighbor ($J_1$), and next-nearest-neighbor ($J_2$) interactions in the presence of a three-spins chiral ($J_{chi}$) term using density matrix renormalization group methods. We obtain a quantum phase diagram with both conventionally ordered and topologically ordered phases. In particular, the long-sought Kalmeyer-Laughlin CSL is shown to emerge under a small $J_{chi}$ perturbation due to the interplay of the magnetic frustration and chiral interactions. The CSL, which is a non-magnetic phase, is identified by the scalar chiral order, the finite spin gap on a torus, and the chiral entanglement spectrum described by chiral $SU(2)_{1}$ conformal field theory.
We numerically study the Heisenberg models on triangular lattices by extending it from the simplest equilateral lattice with only the nearest-neighbor exchange interaction. We show that, by including an additional weak next-nearest-neighbor interaction, a quantum spin-liquid phase is stabilized against the antiferromagnetic order. The spin gap (triplet excitation gap) and spin correlation at long distances decay algebraically with increasing system size at the critical point between the antiferromagnetic phase and the spin-liquid phase. This algebraic behavior continues in the spin-liquid phase as well, indicating the presence of an unconventional critical (algebraic spin-liquid) phase characterized by the dynamical and anomalous critical exponents $z+etasim1$. Unusually small triplet and singlet excitation energies found in extended points of the Brillouin zone impose constraints on this algebraic spin liquid.
We use the state-of-the-art tensor network state method, specifically, the finite projected entangled pair state (PEPS) algorithm, to simulate the global phase diagram of spin-$1/2$ $J_1$-$J_2$ Heisenberg model on square lattices up to $24times 24$. We provide very solid evidences to show that the nature of the intermediate nonmagnetic phase is a gapless quantum spin liquid (QSL), whose spin-spin and dimer-dimer correlations both decay with a power law behavior. There also exists a valence-bond solid (VBS) phase in a very narrow region $0.56lesssim J_2/J_1leq0.61$ before the system enters the well known collinear antiferromagnetic phase. We stress that our work gives rise to the first solid PEPS results beyond the well established density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) through one-to-one direct benchmark for small system sizes. Thus our numerical evidences explicitly demonstrate the huge power of PEPS for solving long-standing 2D quantum many-body problems. The physical nature of the discovered gapless QSL and potential experimental implications are also addressed.
Strongly correlated systems with geometric frustrations can host the emergent phases of matter with unconventional properties. Here, we study the spin $S = 1$ Heisenberg model on the honeycomb lattice with the antiferromagnetic first- ($J_1$) and second-neighbor ($J_2$) interactions ($0.0 leq J_2/J_1 leq 0.5$) by means of density matrix renormalization group (DMRG). In the parameter regime $J_2/J_1 lesssim 0.27$, the system sustains a N{e}el antiferromagnetic phase. At the large $J_2$ side $J_2/J_1 gtrsim 0.32$, a stripe antiferromagnetic phase is found. Between the two magnetic ordered phases $0.27 lesssim J_2/J_1 lesssim 0.32$, we find a textit{non-magnetic} intermediate region with a plaquette valence-bond order. Although our calculations are limited within $6$ unit-cell width on cylinder, we present evidence that this plaquette state could be a strong candidate for this non-magnetic region in the thermodynamic limit. We also briefly discuss the nature of the quantum phase transitions in the system. We gain further insight of the non-magnetic phases in the spin-$1$ system by comparing its phase diagram with the spin-$1/2$ system.
We study the spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg model on the triangular lattice with the nearest-neighbor $J_1 > 0$, the next-nearest-neighobr $J_2 > 0$ Heisenberg interactions, and the additional scalar chiral interaction $J_{chi}(vec{S}_i times vec{S}_j) cdot vec{S}_k$ for the three spins in all the triangles using large-scale density matrix renormalization group calculation on cylinder geometry. With increasing $J_2$ ($J_2/J_1 leq 0.3$) and $J_{chi}$ ($J_{chi}/J_1 leq 1.0$) interactions, we establish a quantum phase diagram with the magnetically ordered $120^{circ}$ phase, stripe phase, and non-coplanar tetrahedral phase. In between these magnetic order phases, we find a chiral spin liquid (CSL) phase, which is identified as a $ u = 1/2$ bosonic fractional quantum Hall state with possible spontaneous rotational symmetry breaking. By switching on the chiral interaction, we find that the previously identified spin liquid in the $J_1 - J_2$ triangular model ($0.08 lesssim J_2/J_1 lesssim 0.15$) shows a phase transition to the CSL phase at very small $J_{chi}$. We also compute spin triplet gap in both spin liquid phases, and our finite-size results suggest large gap in the odd topological sector but small or vanishing gap in the even sector. We discuss the implications of our results to the nature of the spin liquid phases.
Recent proposals for spin-1 Kitaev materials, such as honeycomb Ni oxides with heavy elements of Bi and Sb, have shown that these compounds naturally give rise to antiferromagnetic (AFM) Kitaev couplings. Conceptual interest in such AFM Kitaev systems has been sparked by the observation of a transition to a gapless $U(1)$ spin liquid at intermediate field strengths in the AFM spin-1/2 Kitaev model. However, all hitherto known spin-1/2 Kitaev materials exhibit ferromagnetic bond-directional exchanges. Here we discuss the physics of the spin-1 Kitaev model in a magnetic field and show, by extensive numerical analysis, that for AFM couplings it exhibits an extended gapless quantum spin liquid at intermediate field strengths. The close analogy to its spin-1/2 counterpart suggests that this gapless spin liquid is a $U(1)$ spin liquid with a neutral Fermi surface, that gives rise to enhanced thermal transport signatures.