We examine the effects of quantum fluctuations on a classical spin liquid state in the fully-frustrated honeycomb lattice Bose Hubbard model using quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Frustration is induced explicitly in the model by modulating the sign of the interaction spatially around each lattice hexagon. A superfluid to Mott insulating quantum phase transition can be induced by varying the relative strength of the classical interaction and quantum hopping. In the cases where the interaction has a regular spatial modulation, hopping promotes a phase transition to a symmetry-broken valence-bond solid state. When the interaction is forced to have no regular pattern, the Mott insulating phase is found to be featureless and gapped, making it an interesting candidate state for a quantum spin liquid arising in a Hamiltonian with only nearest-neighbor interactions.
Frustrated bilayer quantum magnets have attracted attention as flat-band spin systems with unconventional thermodynamic properties. We study the low-temperature properties of a frustrated honeycomb-lattice bilayer spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ isotropic ($XXX$) Heisenberg antiferromagnet in a magnetic field by means of an effective low-energy theory using exact diagonalizations and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Our main focus is on the magnetization curve and the temperature dependence of the specific heat indicating a finite-temperature phase transition in high magnetic fields.
New frustrated antiferromagnetic compounds CuRE2Ge2O8 (RE=Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu) have been investigated using high-resolution x-ray diffraction, magnetic and heat capacity measurements. These systems show different magnetic lattices depending on rare-earth element. The nonmagnetic Eu compound is a S=1/2 two-dimensional triangular antiferromagnetic lattice oriented in the ac plane with geometrical frustration. On the other hand, the Pr, Nd, and Sm compounds show a three-dimensional honeycomb-tunnel-like lattice made of RE^3+ running along the a axis with the characteristic behavior of frustrated antif…
Using exact diagonalization calculations, we investigate the ground-state phase diagram of the hard-core Bose-Hubbard-Haldane model on the honeycomb lattice. This allows us to probe the stability of the Bose-metal phase proposed in Varney et al (2011 Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 077201), against various changes in the originally studied Hamiltonian.
We discover a new type of multiple-$q$ state, "ripple state", in a frustrated honeycomb-lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet under magnetic fields. The ground state has an infinite ring-like degeneracy in the wavevector space, exhibiting a cooperative paramagnetic state, "ring-liquid" state. We elucidate that the system exhibits the ripple state as a new low-temperature thermodynamic phase via a second-order phase transition from the ring-liquid state, keeping the ring-like spin structure factor. The spin texture in real space looks like a "water ripple" and can induce a giant electric polarizat…
We consider the spin-$1/2$ XY frustrated antiferromagnetic Heisenberg honeycomb model. There is an unclear intermediate region in the ground state phase diagram of the model. The most recognized phases are the quantum spin-liquid (QSL) and the antiferromagnetic Ising ordering. From the viewpoint of the quantum correlations, the QSL phase is expected to be entangled. Motivated by this fact, we have calculated the concurrence, the quantum discord (QD), and the entanglement entropy, by using numerical Lanczos and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) methods. Our results explicitly show tha…
We study the interplay of strong electron correlations and intra-triangle spin exchange at two-thirds filling of the single-orbital Hubbard model on the decorated honeycomb lattice using rotationally invariant slave bosons. We find that the spin exchange tunes between a spin-$1$ Mott insulator, a metal, and a spin-$0$ Mott insulator when the exchange is antiferromagnetic. The Mott insulators occur from effective intra-triangle multi-orbital interactions and are adiabatically connected to the ground state of an isolated triangle. An antiferromagnetic spin exchange, as determined by the Goodenou…
Using the density-matrix renormalization group, we determine the phase diagram of the spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a honeycomb lattice with a nearest neighbor interaction J1 and a frustrating, next-neighbor exchange J2. As frustration increases, the ground state exhibits Neel, plaquette and dimer orders, with critical points at J2/J1 = 0.22 and 0.35. We observe that both the spin gap and the corresponding order parameters vanish continuously at both the critical points, indicating the presence of deconfined quantum criticality.
We calculate the two-magnon Raman scattering spectra in antiferromagnetic phases of several frustrated spin models defined on the honeycomb lattice. These include the Néel antiferromagnetic phase of a $J_1$-$J_2$-$J_3$ model and the stripe phase of the Heisenberg-Kitaev model. We show that both the magnetic frustration and the anisotropy of interactions may significantly affect the Raman spectra. We further discuss the implications of our results to the magnetic excitations of the iron-based compound BaFe$_2$Se$_2$O and show how the magnetic interactions can be extracted from fit to the Raman …
We show that the honeycomb Heisenberg antiferromagnet with $J_1/2=J_2=J_3$, where $J_{1/2/3}$ are first-, second- and third-neighbour couplings respectively, forms a classical spin liquid with pinch-point singularities in the structure factor at the Brillouin zone corners. Upon dilution with non-magnetic ions, fractionalised degrees of freedom carrying $1/3$ of the free moment emerge. Their effective description in the limit of low-temperature is that of spins randomly located on a triangular lattice, with a frustrated interaction of long-ranged logarithmic form. The XY version of this magnet …
We study the zero-temperature ($T=0$) ground-state (GS) properties of a frustrated spin-half $J^{XXZ}_{1}$--$J^{XXZ}_{2}$ model on the honeycomb lattice with nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor interactions with exchange couplings $J_{1}>0$ and $J_{2} \equiv κJ_{1}>0$, respectively, using the coupled cluster method. Both interactions are of the anisotropic $XXZ$ type. We present the $T=0$ GS phase diagram of the model in the ranges $0 \leq Δ\leq 1$ of the spin-space anisotropy parameter and $0 \leq κ\leq 1$ of the frustration parameter. A possible quantum spin-liquid region is identifie…
In the present paper we present some new data supporting the existence of a spin-disordered phase in the Heisenberg model on the honeycomb lattice with antiferromagnetic interactions up to third neighbors along the line J2=J3, predicted in [Phys. Rev. B 83, 094506 (2011)]. We use the Schwinger boson technique followed by a mean field decoupling and exact diagonalization for small systems to show the existence of an intermediate phase with a spin gap and short range Néel correlations in the strong quantum limit (S=1/2).
In the present paper we study the phase diagram of the Heisenberg model on the honeycomb lattice with antiferromagnetic interactions up to third neighbors along the line $J_2=J_3$ that include the point $J_2=J_3=J_1/2$, corresponding to the highly frustrated point where the classical ground state has macroscopic degeneracy. Using the Linear Spin-Wave, Schwinger boson technique followed by a mean field decoupling and exact diagonalization for small systems we find an intermediate phase with a spin gap and short range Néel correlations in the strong quantum limit (S=1/2). All techniques provide …
We study the frustrated Heisenberg model on the bilayer honeycomb lattice. The ground-state energy and spin gap are calculated, using different bosonic representations at mean field level and numerical calculations, to explore different sectors of the phase diagram. In particular we make use of a bond operator formalism and series expansion calculations to study the extent of dimer inter-layer phase. On the other hand we use the Schwinger boson method and exact diagonalization on small systems to analyze the evolution of on-layer phases. In this case we specifically observe a phase that presen…
We study the phase diagram of the frustrated XY model on the honeycomb lattice by using accurate correlated wave functions and variational Monte Carlo simulations. Our results suggest that a spin-liquid state is energetically favorable in the region of intermediate frustration, intervening between two magnetically ordered phases. The latter ones are represented by classically ordered states supplemented with a long-range Jastrow factor, which includes relevant correlations and dramatically improves the description provided by the purely classical solution of the model. The construction of the …
We study the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a bilayer honeycomb lattice including interlayer frustration. Using a set of complementary approaches, namely Schwinger bosons, dimer series expansion, bond operators, and exact diagonalization, we map out the quantum phase diagram. Analyzing ground state energies and elementary excitation spectra, we find four distinct phases, corresponding to three collinear magnetic long range ordered states, and one quantum disordered interlayer dimer phase. We detail, that the latter phase is adiabatically connected to an "exact" singlet product ground s…
We study the Hubbard model on the frustrated honeycomb lattice with nearest-neighbor $t_1$ and second nearest-neighbor hopping $t_2$, which is isomorphic to the bilayer triangle lattice, using the SU(2)-invariant slave boson theory. We show that the Coulomb interaction $U$ induces antiferromagnetic (AF) chiral spin-density wave ($χ$-SDW) order in a wide range of $κ=t_2/t_1$ where both the two-sublattice AF order at small $κ$ and the decoupled three-sublattice 120$^\circ$ order at large $κ$ are strongly frustrated, leading to three distinct phases with different anomalous Hall responses. We fin…
Highly frustrated spin systems represent a central and challenging problem in condensed mater physics. To this problem, we introduce an algorithm based on mixed projected entangled pair states (m-PEPS), which is a novel type of tensor network. We use the famous Kitaev model on an infinite honeycomb lattice, which can be solved exactly, as a benchmark. With very limited parameters and finite scaling, our calculation results are in good agreement with the exact results, indicating the efficiency of our algorithm. After presenting the benchmark, we investigate the Kitaev-Heisenberg model, which w…
A number of topological nodes including Dirac, quadratic and triple band touching points as well as a pair of degenerate Dirac line nodes are found to emerge in the triplet plaquette excitations of the frustrated spin-1/2 $J_1$-$J_2$ antiferromagnetic Heisenberg honeycomb model when the ground state of the system lies in a spin-disordered plaquette-valence-bond-solid phase. A six-spin plaquette operator theory of this honeycomb model has been developed for this purpose by using the eigenstates of an isolated Heisenberg hexagonal plaquette. Spin-1/2 operators are thus expressed in the Fock spac…
Recent studies demonstrated that there may appear different novel states in correlated systems close to localized-itinerant crossover. Especially favourable conditions for that are met in low-dimensional and in frustrated systems. In this paper I discuss on concrete examples some of such novel states. In particular, for some spinels and triangular systems there appears a "partial Mott transition", in which first some finite clusters (dimers, trimes, tetramers, heptamers) go over to the itinerant regime, and the real bulk Mott transition occurs only later. Also some other specific possibilities…
The Mott transition in honeycomb compounds with significant spin-orbit coupling is explored. At finite temperatures we identify a novel semimetallic phase located between a topological insulator and a topological Mott insulator. This semimetal is characterized by having no charge gap, no quasiparticles and gapped spin excitations with non-trivial topological properties. While charge conduction is incoherent involving mean-free paths violating the Mott-Ioffe-Regel limit, spin excitations can be transported ballistically along the edges giving rise to a quantized spin conductance. Such bad topol…
We use finite temperature strong coupling expansions to calculate thermodynamic properties of the Honeycomb-lattice SU(4) Hubbard model. We present numerical results for various properties including chemical potential, compressibility, entropy and specific heat as a function of temperature and density at several $U/t$ values. We study the onset of charge incompressibility and Mott gaps as the temperature is lowered at integer densities. In the incompressible Mott regime, the expansions are recast into a high temperature expansion for a generalized spin model with SU(4) symmetry, which is then …
We investigate the Hubbard model on two typical frustrated lattices in two dimensions, the kagome lattice and the anisotropic triangular lattice, by means of the cellular dynamical mean field theory. We show that the metallic phase is stabilized up to fairly large Hubbard interactions under strong geometrical frustration in both cases, which results in heavy fermion behavior and several anomalous properties around the Mott transition point. In particular, for the anisotropic triangular lattice, we find novel reentrant behavior in the Mott transition in the moderately frustrated parameter regim…
We study the Mott transition in a frustrated Hubbard model with next-nearest neighbor hopping at half-filling. The interplay between interaction, dimensionality and geometric frustration closes the one-dimensional Mott gap and gives rise to a metallic phase with Fermi surface pockets. We argue that they emerge as a consequence of remnant one-dimensional Umklapp scattering at the momenta with vanishing interchain hopping matrix elements. In this pseudogap phase, enhanced d-wave pairing correlations are driven by antiferromagnetic fluctuations. Within the adopted cluster dynamical mean-field the…
The Kitaev model, characterized by bond-dependent Ising spin interactions among spin-orbit entangled dipole moments in Mott insulators, offered a new approach to quantum spin liquids. Motivated by another type of bond-dependent interaction among quadrupole moments in $5d^2$ Mott insulators, we provide a microscopic route to uncover the Kitaev multipolar liquid, featuring fractionalized excitations out of non-Kramers doublets carrying multipole moments. The key ingredient is the magnetic field that allows for bond-anisotropic quadrupole-octupole interactions via mixing with the excited triplet …
We study the ground-state (gs) phase diagram of the frustrated spin-1/2 $J_{1}$-$J_{2}$-$J_{3}$ antiferromagnet with $J_{2} = J_{3} =κJ_1$ on the honeycomb lattice, using coupled-cluster theory and exact diagonalization methods. We present results for the gs energy, magnetic order parameter, spin-spin correlation function, and plaquette valence-bond crystal (PVBC) susceptibility. We find a Néel antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase for $κ< κ_{c_{1}} \approx 0.47$, a collinear striped AFM phase for $κ> κ_{c_{2}} \approx 0.60$, and a paramagnetic PVBC phase for $κ_{c_{1}} \lesssim κ\lesssim κ_{c_{2}}$. …
We use a novel Monte Carlo method to study the Mott transition in an anisotropic triangular lattice. The real space approach, retaining extended spatial correlations, allows an accurate treatment of non trivial magnetic fluctuations in this frustrated structure. Choosing the degree of anisotropy to mimic the situation in the quasi-two dimensional organics, $κ-$(BEDT-TTF)$_2$Cu[N(CN)$_2$]-X, we detect a wide pseudogap phase, with anomalous spectral and transport properties, between the `ungapped' metal and the `hard gap' Mott insulator. The magnetic fluctuations also lead to pronounced momentum…
Inspired by recent discovery of correlated insulating states in twisted bilayer graphene (TBG), we study a two-orbital Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice with two electrons per unit cell. Based on the real-space density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulation, we identify a metal-insulator transition around $U_c/t=2.5\sim3$. In the vicinity of $U_c$, we find strong spin/orbital density wave fluctuations at commensurate wavevectors, accompanied by weaker incommensurate charge density wave (CDW) fluctuations. The spin/orbital density wave fluctuations are enhanced with increasing syst…
We study the magnetic phase diagram of the $J_1$--$J_2$ Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a honeycomb lattice at the strongly frustrated point $J_2/J_1=1/2$ using large-scale Monte Carlo simulations. At low temperatures we find three different field regimes, each characterized by different broken discrete symmetries. In low magnetic fields up to $h_{c1}/J_1\approx 2.9$ the $Z_3$ rotational lattice symmetry is spontaneously broken while a 1/2-magnetization plateau is stabilized around $h_{c2}/J_1=4$. The collinear plateau state and the coplanar state in higher fields break the $Z_4$ translational s…
Motivated by the current interest in the quantum dimer model on the triangular lattice, we investigate the phase diagram of the closely related fully-frustrated transverse field Ising model on the honeycomb lattice using classical and semi-classical approximations. We show that, in addition to the fully polarized phase at large field, the classical model possesses a multitude of phases that break the translational symmetry which in the dimer language, correspond to a plaquette phase and a columnar phase separated by an infinite cascade of mixed phases. The modification of the phase diagram by …
We use a three-pulse ultrafast optical spectroscopy to study the relaxation processes in a frustrated Mott insulator Na$_2$IrO$_3$. By being able to independently produce the out-of-equilibrium bound states (excitons) of doublons and holons with the first pulse and suppress the underlying antiferromagnetic order with the second one, we were able to elucidate the relaxation mechanism of quasiparticles in this system. By observing the difference in the exciton dynamics in the magnetically ordered and disordered phases we found that the mass of this quasiparticle is mostly determined by its inter…
We study the orbitally frustrated singlet-triplet models that emerge in the context of spin-orbit coupled Mott insulators with $t_{2g}^4$ electronic configuration. In these compounds, low-energy magnetic degrees of freedom can be cast in terms of three-flavor "triplon" operators describing the transitions between spin-orbit entangled $J=0$ ionic ground state and excited $J=1$ levels. In contrast to a conventional, flavor-isotropic O(3) singlet-triplet models, spin-orbit entangled triplon interactions are flavor-and-bond selective and thus highly frustrated. In a honeycomb lattice, we find clos…
In the conventional ferromagnetic systems, topological magnon bands and thermal Hall effect are due to the Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). In principle, however, the DMI is either negligible or it is not allowed by symmetry in some quantum magnets. Therefore, we expect that topological magnon features will not be present in those systems. In addition, quantum magnets on the triangular-lattice are not expected to possess topological features as the DMI or spin-chirality cancels out due to equal and opposite contributions from adjacent triangles. Here, however, we predict that the isomo…
Novel ground states might be realized in honeycomb lattices with strong spin-orbit coupling. Here we study the electronic structure of $α$-RuCl$_3$, in which the Ru ions are in a d5 configuration and form a honeycomb lattice, by angle-resolved photoemission, x-ray photoemission and electron energy loss spectroscopy supported by density functional theory and multiplet calculations. We find that $α$-RuCl$_3$ is a Mott insulator with significant spin-orbit coupling, whose low energy electronic structure is naturally mapped onto Jeff states. This makes $α$-RuCl$_3$ a promising candidate for the re…
We report structural studies of the spin-orbit Mott insulator family K$_x$Ir$_y$O$_2$, with triangular layers of edge-sharing IrO$_6$ octahedra bonded by potassium ions. The potassium content acts as a chemical tuning parameter to control the amount of charge in the Ir-O layers. Unlike the isostructural families with Ir replaced by Co or Rh ($y=1$), which are metallic over a range of potassium compositions $x$, we instead find insulating behaviour with charge neutrality achieved via iridium vacancies, which order in a honeycomb supercell above a critical composition $x_c$. By performing densit…
The phase diagrams of isotropic and anisotropic triangular lattices with local Coulomb interactions are evaluated within cluster dynamical mean field theory. As a result of partial geometric frustration in the anisotropic lattice, short range correlations are shown to give rise to reentrant behavior which is absent in the fully frustrated isotropic limit. The qualitative features of the phase diagrams including the critical temperatures are in good agreement with experimental data for the layered organic charge transfer salts kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2Cu[N(CN)_2]Cl and kappa-(BEDT-TTF)_2Cu_2(CN)_3.
Quantum fluctuations become particularly relevant in highly frustrated quantum magnets and can lead to new states of matter. We provide a simple and robust scenario for inducing magnetic vortex crystals in frustrated Mott insulators. By considering a quantum paramagnet that has a gapped spectrum with six-fold degenerate low energy modes, we study the magnetic field induced condensation of these modes. We use a dilute gas approximation to demonstrate that a plethora of multi-$\mathbf{Q}$ condensates are stabilized for different combinations of exchange interactions. This rich quantum phase diag…
We discuss the solution of the Mott transition problem in a fully frustrated lattice with a semicircular density of states in the limit of infinite dimensions from the point of view of a Landau free energy functional. This approach provides a simple relation between the free energy of the lattice model and that of its local description in terms of an impurity model. The character of the Mott transition in infinite dimensions, (as reviewed by Georges Kotliar Krauth and Rozenberg, RMP 68, 1996, 13) follows simply from the form of the free energy functional and the physics of quantum impurity mod…
In quantum magnetism spin dimers are typically associated with spin-singlet states. To date, $triplet$ $dimerization$ has not been observed in any 3D or quasi-2D material. With this in mind we here discuss the electronic structure of the spin-orbit driven $5d^5$ Mott insulator Li$_2$IrO$_3$, a honeycomb-lattice system with two crystallographically inequivalent Ir-Ir bonds. From $ab$ $initio$ many-body calculations we find that, while both Heisenberg and Kitaev couplings are present, the magnetic interactions are dominated by a strong isotropic ferromagnetic exchange on only one set of bonds. T…
The Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice undergoes a quantum phase transition from a semimetallic to a Mott insulating phase and from a disordered to an anti-ferromagnetically phase. We show that these transitions occur simultaneously and we calculate the critical coupling $U_c=3.835(14)$ as well as the critical exponents $ν=1.181(43)$ and $β=0.898(37)$ which are expected to fall into the $SU(2)$ Gross-Neveu universality class. For this we employ Hybrid Monte Carlo simulations, extrapolate the single particle gap and the spin structure factors to the thermodynamic and continuous time limits,…
We examine the role of spin-orbit coupling in the electronic structure of $α$-RuCl3, in which Ru ions in 4d5 configuration form a honeycomb lattice. The measured optical spectra exhibit a clear optical gap and excitations within the t2g orbitals. The spectra can be described very well with first-principles electronic structure calculations obtained by taking into account both spin orbit coupling and electron correlations. Furthermore, our X-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements at the Ru L-edges exhibit distinct spectral features associated with the presence of substantial spin- orbit coupl…
Ferromagnetism in the two-dimensional CrI$_3$ has generated a lot of excitement, and it was recently proposed that the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in Iodine may generate bond-dependent spin interactions leading to magnetic anisotropy. Here we derive a microscopic spin model of S=3/2 on transition metals surrounded by heavy ligands in honeycomb Mott insulators using a strong-coupling perturbation theory. For ideal octahedra we find Heisenberg and Kitaev interactions, which favor the magnetic moment along the cubic axis via quantum fluctuations. When a slight trigonal distortion of the octahedra i…
Inelastic neutron scattering study has been performed in an S=3/2 bilayer honeycomb lattice compound Bi3Mn4O12(NO3) at ambient and high magnetic fields. Relatively broad and monotonically dispersive magnetic excitations were observed at ambient field, where no long range magnetic order exists. In the magnetic field-induced long-range ordered state at 10 T, the magnetic dispersions become slightly more intense, albeit still broad as in the disordered state, and two excitation gaps, probably originating from an easy-plane magnetic anisotropy and intrabilayer interactions, develop. Analyzing the …
The SU(4)-symmetric spin-orbital model on the honeycomb lattice was recently studied in connection to correlated insulators such as the $e_{g}$ Mott insulator Ba$_{3}$CuSb$_{2}$O$_{9}$ and the insulating phase of magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene at quarter filling. Here we provide a unified discussion of these systems by investigating an extended model that includes the effects of Hund's coupling and anisotropic, orbital-dependent exchange interactions. Using a combination of mean-field theory, linear flavor-wave theory, and variational Monte Carlo, we show that this model harbors a quantu…
The search for quantum spin liquids in frustrated quantum magnets recently has enjoyed a surge of interest, with various candidate materials under intense scrutiny. However, an experimental confirmation of a gapped topological spin liquid remains an open question. Here, we show that circularly-polarized light can provide a novel knob to drive frustrated Mott insulators into a chiral spin liquid (CSL), realizing an elusive quantum spin liquid with topological order. We find that the dynamics of a driven Kagome Mott insulator is well-captured by an effective Floquet spin model, with heating stro…
Using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) on wide cylinders, we study the phase diagram of the spin-1/2 XY model on the honeycomb lattice, with first-neighbor ($J_1 = 1$) and frustrating second-neighbor ($J_2>0$) interactions. For the intermediate frustration regime $0.22\lesssim J_2\lesssim0.36$, we find a surprising antiferromagnetic Ising phase, with ordered moments pointing along the z axis, despite the absence of any S_z_z interactions in the Hamiltonian. Surrounding this phase as a function of $J_2$ are antiferromagnetic phases with the moments pointing in the $x-y$ plane for…
Using a hybrid method based on fermionic diagonalization and classical Monte Carlo, we investigate the interplay between itinerant and localized spins, with competing double- and super-exchange interactions, on a honeycomb lattice. For moderate superexchange, a geometrically frustrated triangular lattice of hexagons forms spontaneously. For slightly larger superexchange a dimerized groundstate is stable that has macroscopic degeneracy. The presence of these states on a non-frustrated honeycomb lattice highlights a novel phenomenon in this itinerant electron system: emergent geometrical frustra…
We investigate the competition between charge-density-wave (CDW) states and a Coulomb interaction-driven topological Mott insulator (TMI) in the honeycomb extended Hubbard model. For the spinful model with on-site ($U$) and next-nearest-neighbor ($V_2$) Coulomb interactions at half filling, we find two peculiar six-sublattice charge-density-wave insulating states by using variational Monte Carlo simulations as well as the Hartree-Fock approximation. We observe that conventional ordered states always win with respect to the TMI. The ground state is given in the large-$V_2$ region by a CDW chara…
We use a combination of analytical and numerical techniques to study the phase diagram of the frustrated Heisenberg model on the bilayer honeycomb lattice. Using the Schwinger boson description of the spin operators followed by a mean field decoupling, the magnetic phase diagram is studied as a function of the frustration coupling $J_{2}$ and the interlayer coupling $J_{\bot}$. The presence of both magnetically ordered and disordered phases is investigated by means of the evaluation of ground-state energy, spin gap, local magnetization and spin-spin correlations. We observe a phase with a spin…
We study the ground-state (gs) phase diagram of the frustrated spin-1/2 $J_{1}$--$J_{2}$ antiferromagnet with $J_{2}=κJ_1>0$ ($J_{1}>0$) on the honeycomb lattice, using the coupled-cluster method. We present results for the ground-state energy, magnetic order parameter and plaquette valence-bond crystal (PVBC) susceptibility. We find a paramagnetic PVBC phase for $κ_{c_1}<κ<κ_{c_2}$, where $κ_{c_1} \approx 0.207 \pm 0.003$ and $κ_{c_2} \approx 0.385 \pm 0.010$. The transition at $κ_{c_1}$ to the Néel phase seems to be a continuous deconfined transition (although we cannot exclude a very narrow…
The $t_{2g}$ orbitals of an edge-shared transition-metal oxide with a honeycomb lattice structure form dispersionless electronic bands when only hopping mediated by the edge-sharing oxygens is accessible. This is due to the formation of isolated quasimolecular orbitals (QMOs) in each hexagon, introduced recently by Mazin et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 197201 (2012)], which stabilizes a band insulating phase for $t_{2g}^5$ systems. However, with help of the exact diagonalization method to treat the electron kinetics and correlations on an equal footing, we find that the QMOs are fragile against …
We report the neutron scattering results on magnetic orderings and excitations in $\mathrm{Ba}_2\mathrm{CoTeO}_6$ composed of two almost isolated subsystems A and B, which are described as an $S\,{=}\,1/2$ triangular Heisenberg-like antiferromagnet and a frustrated honeycomb Ising-like antiferromagnet, respectively. Stripy ordering of subsystem B was confirmed below $T_{\rm N1}\,{=}\,12.0$ K, whereas sharp streaks were observed along $(1/3, 1/3, L)$ and $(2/3, 2/3, L)$ at 0.3 K (${\ll}\,T_{\rm N2}\,{=}\,3.0$ K). This indicates the two-dimensional nature of ordering in subsystem A. It was found…
We examine the stability of classical states with a generic incommensurate spiral order against quantum fluctuations. Specifically, we focus on the frustrated spin-1/2 $XY$ and Heisenberg models on the honeycomb lattice with nearest-neighbor $J_1$ and next-nearest-neighbor $J_2$ antiferromagnetic couplings. Our variational approach is based on the Jastrow wave functions, which include quantum correlations on top of classical spin waves. We perform a systematic optimization of wave vectors and Jastrow pseudo-potentials within this class of variational states and find that quantum fluctuations f…
Searching for spin liquid states has long been attracting both experimentalists and theorists. In this article, we review recent density matrix renormalization group studies of the spin-1/2 XY model on the honeycomb lattice, with first-neighbor ($J_1 = 1$) and frustrating second-neighbor ($J_2>0$) interactions. For the intermediate frustration regime $0.22\lesssim J_2\lesssim0.36$, there exists a surprising antiferromagnetic Ising phase, with ordered moments pointing along the $z$ axis, despite the absence of any $S_z S_z$ interactions in the Hamiltonian. Surrounding this phase as a function o…
Order-by-disorder from Schwinger bosons in a frustrated honeycomb ferromagnet
Institut Néel, Université Grenoble Alpes and CNRS（内尔研究所，格勒诺布尔阿尔卑斯大学和法国国家科学研究中心）；Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada, Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC) and Instituto Nicolás Cabrera, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（凝聚态物理理论系，凝聚态物理中心（IFIMAC）和尼古拉斯·卡布雷拉研究所，马德里自治大学）
We study the spin-1 honeycomb lattice magnets with frustrated exchange interactions. The proposed microscopic spin model contains first and second neighbor Heisenberg interactions as well as the single-ion anisotropy. We establish a rich phase diagram that includes a featureless quantum paramagnet and various spin spiral states induced by the mechanism of order by quantum disorder. Although the quantum paramagnet is dubbed featureless, it is shown that, the magnetic excitations develop a contour degeneracy in the reciprocal space at the band minima. These contour degenerate excitations are res…
We present inelastic neutron scattering measurements of the antiferromagnetic insulator CaMn$_2$Sb$_2$, which consists of corrugated honeycomb layers of Mn. The dispersion of magnetic excitations has been measured along the H and L directions in reciprocal space, with a maximum excitation energy of $\approx$ 24 meV. These excitations are well described by spin waves in a Heisenberg model, including first and second neighbor exchange interactions, J$_{1}$ and J$_{2}$, in the Mn plane and also an exchange interaction between planes. The determined ratio J$_{2}$/J$_{1}$ $\approx$ 1/6 suggests tha…
We investigate the interacting Dirac fermions on honeycomb lattice by cluster dynamical mean-field theory (CDMFT) combined with continuous time quantum Monte Carlo simulation (CTQMC). A novel scenario for the semimetal-Mott insulator transition of the interacting Dirac fermions is found beyond the previous DMFT studies. We demonstrate that the non-local spatial correlations play a vital role in the Mott transition on the honeycomb lattice. We also elaborate the experimental protocol to observe this phase transition by the ultracold atoms on optical honeycomb lattice.
We use the coupled cluster method (CCM) to study a frustrated spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ $J_{1}$--$J_{2}$--$J_{1}^{\perp}$ Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a bilayer honeycomb lattice with $AA$ stacking. Both nearest-neighbor (NN) and frustrating next-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic (AFM) exchange interactions are present in each layer, with respective exchange coupling constants $J_{1}>0$ and $J_{2} \equiv κJ_{1} > 0$. The two layers are coupled with NN AFM exchanges with coupling strength $J_{1}^{\perp}\equiv δJ_{1}>0$. We calculate to high orders of approximation within the CCM the zero-field trans…
We study the nearest-neighbor exchange ($J_1$) and second-neighbor exchange ($J_2$) XY antiferromagnet on the honeycomb lattice using ground state series expansions around N{é}el, columnar and dimer phases. The conventional two-sublattice XY N{é}el order at small $J_2$ vanishes at $J_2/J_1=0.22\pm 0.01$ in agreement with results from Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) studies. Near the transition, we find evidence for an {\it approximate} emergent symmetry between XY and Ising degrees of freedom, namely the nearest-neighbor Ising and XY spin correlations become nearly equal. This sugg…
