Continuous symmetries are believed to emerge at many quantum critical points in frustrated magnets. In this work, we study two candidates of this paradigm: the transverse-field frustrated Ising model (TFFIM) on the triangle and the honeycomb lattices. The former is the prototypical example of this paradigm, and the latter has recently been proposed as another realization. Our large-scale Monte Carlo simulation confirms that the quantum phase transition (QPT) in the triangle lattice TFFIM indeed hosts an emergent O(2) symmetry, but that in the honeycomb lattice TFFIM is a first-order QPT and does not have an emergent continuous symmetry. Furthermore, our analysis of the order parameter histogram reveals that such different behavior originates from the irrelevance and relevance of anisotropic terms near the QPT in the low-energy effective theory of the two models. The comparison between theoretical analysis and numerical simulation in this work paves the way for scrutinizing investigation of emergent continuous symmetry at classical and quantum phase transitions.
We consider the spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on a bilayer honeycomb lattice including interlayer frustration in the presence of an external magnetic field. In the vicinity of the saturation field, we map the low-energy states of this quantum system onto the spatial configurations of hard hexagons on a honeycomb lattice. As a result, we can construct effective classical models (lattice-gas as well as Ising models) on the honeycomb lattice to calculate the properties of the frustrated quantum Heisenberg spin system in the low-temperature regime. We perform classical Monte Carlo si…
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…
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 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 …
Evidence of a spin liquid phase in the frustrated honeycomb lattice
在本文中,我们提出了一些新的数据,支持在蜂窝晶格上的海森堡模型中存在自旋无序相,反铁磁相互作用沿着线J2=J3,在[Phys. Rev. B 83,094506(2011)]预测的第三邻居。我们使用Schwinger玻色子技术,然后对小系统进行平均场解耦和精确对角化,以证明在强量子极限(S=1/2)下存在具有自旋能隙和短程Néel关联的中间相。
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 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…
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…
We study geometrical responses of magnons driven by a temperature gradient in frustrated spin systems. While Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions are usually incorporated to obtain geometrically nontrivial magnon bands, here we investigate thermal Hall responses of magnons that do no rely on the DM interactions. Specifically, we focus on frustrated spin systems with sublattice degrees of freedom and show that a nonzero Berry curvature requires breaking of an effective $PT$ symmetry. According to this symmetry consideration, we study the $J_1$-$J_2$-$J_2^\prime$ Heisenberg models on a honeyc…
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…
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…
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…
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 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 a frustrated spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ $J_{1}$--$J_{2}$--$J_{3}$--$J_{1}^{\perp}$ Heisenberg antiferromagnet on an $AA$-stacked bilayer honeycomb lattice. In each layer we consider nearest-neighbor (NN), next-nearest-neighbor, and next-next-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic (AFM) exchange couplings $J_{1}$, $J_{2}$, and $J_{3}$, respectively. The two layers are coupled with an AFM NN exchange coupling $J_{1}^{\perp}\equivδJ_{1}$. The model is studied for arbitrary values of $δ$ along the line $J_{3}=J_{2}\equivαJ_{1}$ that includes the most highly frustrated point at $α=\frac{1}{2}$, where …
In two-dimensional (2D) ferromagnets, anisotropy is essential for the magnetic ordering as dictated by the Mermin-Wagner theorem. But when competing anisotropies are present, the phase transition becomes nontrivial. Here, utilizing highly sensitive susceptometry of scanning superconducting quantum interference device microscopy, we probe the spin correlations of ABC-stacked CrBr3 under zero magnetic field. We identify a plateau feature in susceptibility above the critical temperature (Tc) in thick samples. It signifies a crossover regime induced by the competition between easy-plane intralayer…
Recent experiments on the Co-based $d^7$ honeycomb materials BaCo$_2$(AsO$_4$)$_2$ and BaCo$_2$(PO$_4$)$_2$ have drawn renewed interest to XXZ models with competing interactions beyond the nearest neighbor exchange. While the case of dominant antiferromagnetic exchange has been extensively studied, the actual materials exhibit a ferromagnetic nearest neighbor exchange. Here we show that such a sign change of the dominant nearest neighbor coupling has substantial consequences on the phase diagram. In particular, the nature of the quantum disordered phase of interest changes from a plaquette val…
We report magnetization, heat capacity, 7Li - nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and muSR (muon spin roration) measurements on the honeycomb 4d5 spin liquid candidate Li2RhO3. The magnetization in small magnetic fields provides evidence of the partial spin-freezing of a small fraction of Rh4+ -moments at 6 K, whereas the Curie-Weiss behavior above 100 K suggests a pseudo-spin-1/2 paramagnet with a moment of about 2.2 muB. The magnetic specific heat (Cm) exhibits no field dependence and demonstrates the absence of long range magnetic order down to 0.35 K. Cm/T passes through a broad maximum at a…
Quantum to classical crossover is a fundamental question in dynamics of quantum many-body systems. In frustrated magnets, for example, it is highly non-trivial to describe the crossover from the classical spin liquid with a macroscopically-degenerate ground-state manifold, to the quantum spin liquid phase with fractionalized excitations. This is an important issue as we often encounter the demand for a sharp distinction between the classical and quantum spin liquid behaviors in real materials. Here we take the example of the classical spin liquid in a frustrated magnet with novel bond-dependen…
We investigate a spin-$1/2$ two-leg honeycomb ladder with frustrating next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) coupling along the legs, which is equivalent to two $J_1$-$J_2$ spin chains coupled with $J_\perp$ at odd rungs. The full parameter region of the model is systematically studied using conventional and infinite density-matrix renormalization group as well as bosonization. The rich phase diagram consists of five distinct phases: A Haldane phase, a NNN-Haldane phase and a staggered dimer phase when $J_{\perp} < 0$; a rung singlet phase and a columnar dimer phase when $J_{\perp} > 0$. An interesting r…
Frustrated spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ Heisenberg magnet on an $AA$-stacked honeycomb bilayer: High-order study of the collinear magnetic phases of the $J_{1}$--$J_{2}$--$J_{1}^{\perp}$ model
Spiral spin liquid resilient to quantization in the frustrated honeycomb antiferromagnet GdZnPO
Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center and School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology(华中科技大学物理学院武汉国家磁强场中心);School of Physics and Beijing Key Laboratory of Opto-electronic Functional Materials & Micro-nano Devices, Renmin University of China(中国人民大学物理学院光电功能材料与微纳器件北京市重点实验室);Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院物理研究所);Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory(松山湖材料实验室)