We study exactly both the ground-state fidelity susceptibility and bond-bond correlation function in the Kitaev honeycomb model. Our results show that the fidelity susceptibility can be used to identify the topological phase transition from a gapped A phase with Abelian anyon excitations to a gapless B phase with non-Abelian anyon excitations. We also find that the bond-bond correlation function decays exponentially in the gapped phase, but algebraically in the gapless phase. For the former case, the correlation length is found to be $1/ξ=2\sinh^{-1}[\sqrt{2J_z -1}/(1-J_z)]$, which diverges around the critical point $J_z=(1/2)^+$.
We propose a quantum protocol that allows preparing a ground state (GS) of the honeycomb Kitaev model. Our approach efficiently uses underlying symmetries and techniques from topological error correction. It is based on the stabilization procedure, the developed centralizer ansatz, and utilizes the vortex basis description as the most advantageous for qubit-based simulations. We demonstrate the high fidelity preparation of spin liquid ground states for the original Kitaev model, getting the exact GS for N=24 spins using 230 two-qubit operations. We then extend the variational procedure to non-…
Relativistic Mott insulators known as 'Kitaev materials' potentially realize spin liquids hosting non-Abelian anyons. Motivated by fault-tolerant quantum-computing applications in this setting, we introduce a dynamical anyon-generation protocol that exploits universal edge physics. The setup features holes in the spin liquid, which define energetically cheap locations for non-Abelian anyons, connected by a narrow bridge that can be tuned between spin liquid and topologically trivial phases. We show that modulating the bridge from trivial to spin liquid over intermediate time scales -- quantifi…
Kitaev's model of spins interacting on a honeycomb lattice describes a quantum spin-liquid, where an emergent static $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge field is coupled to Majorana fermions. In the presence of an external magnetic field and for a range of interaction strengths, the system behaves as a gapped, non-Abelian quantum spin-liquid. In this phase, the vortex excitations of the emergent $\mathbb{Z}_2$ gauge field have Majorana zero modes bound to them. Motivated by recent experimental progress in measuring and characterizing real materials that could exhibit spin-liquid behavior, we analytically cal…
The Kitaev honeycomb model is a system allowing for experimentally realisable quantum computation with topological protection of quantum information. Practical implementation of quantum information processing typically relies on adiabatic, i.e. slow dynamics. Here we show that the restriction to adiabatic dynamics can be overcome with optimal control theory, enabled by an extension of the fermionization of the Kitaev honeycomb model to the time-dependent case. Moreover we present a quantum control method that is applicable to large lattice models due to sub-exponential scaling.
We report results of our study of a newly synthesized honeycomb iridate NaxIrO3 (0.60 < x < 0.80). Single-crystal NaxIrO3 adopts a honeycomb lattice noticeably without distortions and stacking disorder inherently existent in its sister compound Na2IrO3. The oxidation state of the Ir ion is a mixed valence state resulting from a majority Ir5+(5d4) ion and a minority Ir6+(5d3) ion. NaxIrO3 is a Mott insulator likely with a predominant pseudospin = 1 state. It exhibits an effective moment of 1.1 Bohr Magneton/Ir and a Curie-Weiss temperature of -19 K but with no discernable long-range order above…
Quantum computation provides a unique opportunity to explore new regimes of physical systems through the creation of non-trivial quantum states far outside of the classical limit. However, such computation is remarkably sensitive to noise and undergoes rapid dephasing in most cases. One potential solution to these prosaic concerns is to encode and process the information using topological manipulations of so-called anyons, particles in two dimensions with non-Abelian statistics. Unfortunately, practical implementation of such a topological system remains far from complete, both in terms of phy…
We analyze the Bures metric over the canonical thermal states for the Kitaev honeycomb mode. In this way the effects of finite temperature on topological phase transitions can be studied. Different regions in the parameter space of the model can be clearly identified in terms of different temperature scaling behavior of the Bures metric tensor. Furthermore, we show a simple relation between the metric elements and the crossover temperature between the quasi-critical and the quasi-classical regions. These results extend the ones of [29,30] to finite temperatures.
The Kitaev honeycomb model is an approximate topological quantum error correcting code in the same phase as the toric code, but requiring only a 2-body Hamiltonian. As a frustrated spin model, it is well outside the commuting models of topological quantum codes that are typically studied, but its exact solubility makes it more amenable to analysis of effects arising in this noncommutative setting than a generic topologically ordered Hamiltonian. Here we study quantum error correction in the honeycomb model using both analytic and numerical techniques. We first prove explicit exponential bounds…
We consider an extension of the Kitaev honeycomb model based on arbitrary dimer coverings satisfying matching rules. We focus on three different dimer coverings having the smallest unit cells for which we calculate the ground-state phase diagram. We also study one- and two-vortex properties for these coverings in the Abelian phases and show that vortex-vortex interactions can be attractive or repulsive. These qualitative differences are confirmed analytically by high-order perturbative expansions around the isolated-dimer limit. Similarities and differences with the original Kitaev honeycomb m…
We present a construction of the Kitaev honeycomb lattice model on an arbitrary higher genus surface. We first generalize the exact solution of the model based on the Jordan-Wigner fermionization to a surface with genus $g = 2$, and then use this as a basic module to extend the solution to lattices of arbitrary genus. We demonstrate our method by calculating the ground states of the model in both the Abelian doubled $\mathbb{Z}_2$ phase and the non-Abelian Ising topological phase on lattices with the genus up to $g = 6$. We verify the expected ground state degeneracy of the system in both topo…
We derive a theory for the generation of arbitrary spin-spin interactions in superconducting circuits via periodic time modulation of the individual qubits or the qubit-qubit interactions. The modulation frequencies in our approach are in the microwave or radio frequency regime so that the required fields can be generated with standard generators. Among others, our approach is suitable for generating spin lattices that exhibit quantum spin liquid behavior such as Kitaev's honeycomb model.
We show that ultracold polar molecules pinned in an optical lattice can be used to access a variety of exotic spin models, including the Kitaev honeycomb model. Treating each molecule as a rigid rotor, we use DC electric and microwave fields to define superpositions of rotational levels as effective spin degrees of freedom, while dipole-dipole interactions give rise to interactions between the spins. In particular, we show that, with sufficient microwave control, the interaction between two spins can be written as a sum of five independently controllable Hamiltonian terms proportional to the f…
The spectral properties of Kitaev's honeycomb lattice model are investigated both analytically and numerically with the focus on the non-abelian phase of the model. After summarizing the fermionization technique which maps spins into free Majorana fermions, we evaluate the spectrum of sparse vortex configurations and derive the interaction between two vortices as a function of their separation. We consider the effect vortices can have on the fermionic spectrum as well as on the phase transition between the abelian and non-abelian phases. We explicitly demonstrate the $2^n$-fold ground state de…
Kitaev honeycomb model with topological phase transition at zero temperature is studied using quantum information method. Based on the exact solution of the ground state, the mutual information between two nearest sites and between two bonds with longest distance are obtained. It is found that the mutual information show some singularities at the critical point where the ground state of the system transits from gapless phase to gapped phase. The finite-size effects and scalar behavior are also studied. The mutual information can serve as good indicators of the topological phase transition, sin…
The Kitaev honeycomb model is a paradigm of exactly-solvable models, showing non-trivial physical properties such as topological quantum order, abelian and non-abelian anyons, and chirality. Its solution is one of the most beautiful examples of the interplay of different mathematical techniques in condensed matter physics. In this paper, we show how to derive a tensor network (TN) description of the eigenstates of this spin-1/2 model in the thermodynamic limit, and in particular for its ground state. In our setting, eigenstates are naturally encoded by an exact 3d TN structure made of fermioni…
Disorder-free localization has recently emerged as a mechanism for ergodicity breaking in homogeneous lattice gauge theories. In this work we show that this mechanism can lead to unconventional states of quantum matter as the absence of thermalization lifts constraints imposed by equilibrium statistical physics. We study a Kitaev honeycomb model in a skew magnetic field subject to a quantum quench from a fully polarized initial product state and observe nonergodic dynamics as a consequence of disorder-free localization. We find that the system exhibits a subballistic power-law entanglement gro…
We analyse the Kitaev honeycomb model, by means of the Berry curvature with respect to Hamiltonian parameters. We concentrate on the ground-state vortex-free sector, which allows us to exploit an appropriate Fermionisation technique. The parameter space includes a time-reversal breaking term which provides an analytical headway to study the curvature in phases in which it would otherwise vanish. The curvature is then analysed in the limit in which the time-reversal-symmetry-breaking perturbation vanishes. This provides remarkable information about the topological phase transitions of the model…
Kitaev's honeycomb lattice spin model is a remarkable exactly solvable model, which has a particular type of spin liquid (Kitaev spin liquid) as the ground state. Although its possible realization in iridates and $α$-RuCl$_3$ has been vigorously discussed recently, these materials have substantial non-Kitaev direct exchange interactions and do not have a spin liquid ground state. We propose metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) with Ru$^{3+}$ (or Os$^{3+}$) forming the honeycomb lattice as promising candidates for a more ideal realization of Kitaev-type spin models where the direct exchange interact…
We propose a mean to obtain computationally useful resource states also known as cluster states, for measurement-based quantum computation, via transitionless quantum driving algorithm. The idea is to cool the system to its unique ground state and tune some control parameters to arrive at computationally useful resource state, which is in one of the degenerate ground states. Even though there is set of conserved quantities already present in the model Hamiltonian, which prevents the instantaneous state to go to any other eigenstate subspaces, one cannot quench the control parameters to get the…
We analyze the gapped phase of the Kitaev honeycomb model perturbatively in the isolated-dimer limit. Our analysis is based on the continuous unitary transformations method which allows one to compute the spectrum as well as matrix elements of operators between eigenstates, at high order. The starting point of our study consists in an exact mapping of the original honeycomb spin system onto a square-lattice model involving an effective spin and a hardcore boson. We then derive the low-energy effective Hamiltonian up to order 10 which is found to describe an interacting-anyon system, contrary t…
We study finite temperature topological phase transitions of the Kitaev's spin honeycomb model in the vortex-free sector with the use of the recently introduced mean Uhlmann curvature. We employ an appropriate Fermionisation procedure to study the system as a two-band p-wave superconductor described by a BdG Hamiltonian. This allows to study relevant quantities such as Berry and mean Uhlmann curvatures in a simple setting. More specifically, we consider the spin honeycomb in the presence of an external magnetic field breaking time reversal symmetry. The introduction of such an external perturb…
We analyze the Kitaev model on the triangle-honeycomb lattice whose ground state has recently been shown to be a chiral spin liquid. We consider two perturbative expansions: the isolated-dimer limit containing Abelian anyons and the isolated-triangle limit. In the former case, we derive the low-energy effective theory and discuss the role played by multi-plaquette interactions. In this phase, we also compute the spin-spin correlation functions for any vortex configuration. In the isolated-triangle limit, we show that the effective theory is, at lowest nontrivial order, the Kitaev honeycomb mod…
