Using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations we show that a spin-$1/2$ XXZ model on a two-dimensional anisotropic Kagome lattice exhibits a tripartite entangled plaquette state that preserves all of the Hamiltonian symmetries. It is connected via phase boundaries to a ferromagnet and a valence-bond solid that break U(1) and lattice translation symmetries, respectively. We study the phase diagram of the model in detail, in particular the transitions to the tripartite entangled plaquette state, which are consistent with conventional order-disorder transitions. Our results can be interpreted as a description of the charge sector dynamics of a Hubbard model applied to the description of the spin liquid candidate ${\mathrm{LiZn}}_{2}{\mathrm{Mo}}_{3}{\mathrm{O}}_{8}$, as well as a model of strongly correlated bosonic atoms loaded onto highly tunable {\it trimerized} optical Kagome lattices.
We analyze magnetic order in iron-chalcogenide Fe$_{1+y}$Te -- the parent compound of high-temperature superconductor Fe$_{1+y}$Te$_{1-x}$Se$_x$. Neutron scattering experiments show that magnetic order in this material contains components with momentum $Q_1=(π/2, π/2)$ and $Q_2 =(π/2, -π/2)$ in Fe-only Brillouin zone. The actual spin order depends on the interplay between these two components. Previous works argued that spin order is a single-$Q$ state (either $Q_1$ or $Q_2$). Such an order breaks rotational $C_4$ symmetry and order spins into a double diagonal stripe. We show that quantum flu…
We study the frustrated dimer-plaquette quantum spin chain for ferromagnetic dimer bonds. This quantum system undergoes a series of first-order ground-state phase transitions driven by frustration or by a magnetic field. We find that the different nature of the ground-state phases has a strong influence on the magnetization curve as well as the low-temperature thermodynamics. In particular, the magnetization curve exhibits plateaus and jumps, the number of which depends on the strength of frustration. The temperature dependence of the susceptibility may either show activated spin-gap behaviour…
Using both exact diagonalizations and diagonalizations in a subset of short-range valence bond singlets, we address the nature of the groundstate of the Heisenberg spin-1/2 antiferromagnet on the square lattice with competing next-nearest and next-next-nearest neighbor antiferromagnetic couplings (J1-J2-J3 model). A detailed comparison of the two approaches reveals a region along the line (J2+J3)/J1=1/2, where the description in terms of nearest-neighbor singlet coverings is excellent, therefore providing evidence for a magnetically disordered region. Furthermore a careful analysis of dimer-di…
Quantum phase transitions between the magnetically ordered and disordered states are studied for the two-dimensional antiferromagnetic quantum spin systems with ladder, plaquette, and mixed-spin structures. Starting with properly chosen singlet-cluster configurations, we perform the series expansion for the staggered magnetic susceptibility. The phase boundary is determined by applying the Dlog and biased Padé approximants to the staggered susceptibility thus obtained. The resulting phase diagram allows us to discuss the quantum phase transitions quantitatively, which agrees fairly well with t…
Employing extensive cellular dynamical mean-field theory (CDMFT) calculations with exact diagonalization impurity solver, we investigate the ground state phase diagrams and non-magnetic metal-insulator transitions of the half-filled Hubbard model on two plaquette -- the 1/5 depleted and checkerboard -- square lattices. We identify three different insulators in the phase diagrams: dimer insulator, antiferromagnetic insulator, and plaquette insulator. And we demonstrate that the plaquette insulator is a novel fragile Mott insulator (FMI) which features a nontrivial one-dimensional irreducible re…
By using the series expansion techniques, we study the excitation spectrum for the two-dimensional quantum spin systems with ladder, plaquette and mixed-spin structures. We calculate the spin excitation gap and thus determine the phase boundary between the spin-gap phase and the magnetically ordered phase rather precisely. It is found that the phase diagram obtained improves fairly well the one previously obtained via the ground-state susceptibility.
Aiming to describe frustrated quantum magnets with non-magnetic singlet ground states, we have extended the Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) loop-expansion to derive a generalized Quantum Dimer Model containing only connected terms up to arbitrary order. For the square lattice frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnet (J1-J2-J3 model), an expansion up to 8th order shows that the leading correction to the original RK model comes from dimer moves on length-6 loops. This model free of the original sign problem is treated by advanced numerical techniques. The results suggest that a rotationally anisotropic plaqu…
A fractionally quantized Berry phase is examined numerically in an anisotropic spin-1/2 XXZ model on the Kagome lattice. It is shown that the Berry phase has a fractionally quantized and non-zero value when an anisotropy is increased, which is consistent with the emergence of the tripartite entangled plaquette phase discussed by J. Carrasquilla et al. [Phys. Rev. B96, 054405 (2017)].
Recent experiments [J. Guo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.124,206602 (2020)] on thermodynamic properties of the frustrated layered quantum magnet SrCu$_2$(BO$_3$)$_2$ -- the Shastry-Sutherland material -- have provided strong evidence for a low-temperature phase transition between plaquette-singlet and antiferromagnetic order as a function of pressure. Further motivated by the recently discovered unusual first-order quantum phase transition with an apparent emergent O(4) symmetry of the antiferromagnetic and plaquette-singlet order parameters in a two-dimensional "checkerboard J-Q" quantum spin model…
We study antiferromagnetic, $S=1/2$ Heisenberg models with nearest and second neighbor interactions on the one-fifth depleted square lattice which describes the spin degrees of freedom in the spin-gap system CaV$_4$O$_9$. The meta-plaquette expansion for the triplet excitation spectrum is extended to fifth order, and the results are compared with experimental data on CaV$_4$O$_9$. We attempt to locate the phase boundary between magnetically ordered and gapped phases.
We investigate the non magnetic phase of the spin-half frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the square lattice using exact diagonalization (up to 36 sites) and quantum Monte Carlo techniques (up to 144 sites). The spin gap and the susceptibilities for the most important crystal symmetry breaking operators are computed. A genuine and somehow unexpected `plaquette RVB', with spontaneously broken translation symmetry and no broken rotation symmetry, comes out from our numerical simulations as the most plausible ground state for $J_2/J_1 \simeq 0.5 $.
We investigate low-energy properties of two-dimensional quantum spin systems with the ladder and plaquette structures, which are described by a generalized antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model with both of the bond and spin alternations. By exploiting a non-linear $σ$ model technique and a modified spin wave approach, we evaluate the spin gap and the spontaneous magnetization to discuss the quantum phase transition between the ordered and disordered states. We argue how the spin-gapped phase is driven to the antiferromagnetic phase in the phase diagram.
We apply the plaquette renormalization scheme of tensor network states [Phys. Rev. E, 83, 056703 (2011)] to study the spin-1/2 frustrated Heisenberg J1-J2 model on a L*L square lattice with L = 8, 16 and 32. By treating tensor elements as variational parameters, we obtain the ground states for different J2/J1 values, and investigate the staggered magnetic order parameters, the nearest-neighbor spin-spin correlations and the plaquette order parameters. In addition to the well-known Néel-order and collinear-order at low and high J2/J1, we observe a plaquette order at intermediate J2/J1. A contin…
The Shastry-Sutherland model as a canonical example of frustrated magnetism has been extensively studied. The conventional wisdom has been that the transition from the plaquette valence bond order to the Neel order is direct and potentially realizes a deconfined quantum critical point beyond the Ginzburg-Landau paradigm. This scenario however was challenged recently by improved numerics from density matrix renormalization group which offers evidence for a narrow gapless spin liquid between the two phases. Prompted by this controversy and to shed light on this intricate parameter regime from a …
The study of interacting spin systems is of fundamental importance for modern condensed matter physics. On frustrated lattices, magnetic exchange interactions cannot be simultaneously satisfied, and often give rise to competing exotic ground states. The frustrated 2D Shastry-Sutherland lattice realized by SrCu2(BO3)2 is an important test to our understanding of quantum magnetism. It was constructed to have an exactly solvable 2-spin dimer singlet ground state within a certain range of exchange parameters and frustration. While the exact dimer state and the antiferromagnetic order at both ends …
We have precisely determined the ground state phase diagram of the quantum spin-1 bilinear-biquadratic Heisenberg model on the honeycomb lattice using the tensor renormalization group method. We find that the ferromagnetic, ferroquadrupolar, and a large part of the antiferromagnetic phases are stable against quantum fluctuations. However, around the phase where the ground state is antiferroquadrupolar ordered in the classical limit, quantum fluctuations suppress completely all magnetic orders, leading to a plaquette order phase which breaks the lattice symmetry but preserves the spin SU(2) sym…
We use inelastic neutron scattering to show that long-range spin waves arising from the static bicollinear antiferromagnetic (AF) order in FeTe, which have twofold rotational symmetry in a fully detwinned crystal, rapidly dissolve above $E\approx 26$ meV into ridges of scattering with fourfold rotational symmetry and a nearly isotropic magnetic fluctuation spectrum. With increasing temperature above $T_N\approx 68$ K, the twofold spin waves change into broad regions of scattering with fourfold symmetry. Since the scattering patterns from plaquette magnetic order generated within a bilinear biq…
In this article, we prove that exact representations of dimer and plaquette valence-bond ket ground states for quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnets may be formed via the usual coupled cluster method (CCM) from independent-spin product (e.g. Néel) model states. We show that we are able to provide good results for both the ground-state energy and the sublattice magnetization for dimer and plaquette valence-bond phases within the CCM. As a first example, we investigate the spin-half $J_1$--$J_2$ model for the linear chain, and we show that we are able to reproduce exactly the dimerized ground (ket…
We study the effect of quantum fluctuations by means of a transverse magnetic field ($Γ$) on the antiferromagnetic $J_1-J_2$ Ising model on the checkerboard lattice, the two dimensional version of the pyrochlore lattice. The zero-temperature phase diagram of the model has been obtained by employing a plaquette operator approach (POA). The plaquette operator formalism bosonizes the model, in which a single boson is associated to each eigenstate of a plaquette and the inter-plaquette interactions define an effective Hamiltonian. The excitations of a plaquette would represent an-harmonic fluctuat…
We investigate the ground-state phase diagram of the frustrated transverse field Ising (TFI) model on the checkerboard lattice (CL), which consists of Néel, collinear, quantum paramagnet and plaquette-valence bond solid (VBS) phases. We implement a numerical simulation that is based on the recently developed unconstrained tree tensor network (TTN) ansatz, which systematically improves the accuracy over the conventional methods as it exploits the internal gauge selections. At the highly frustrated region ($J_2=J_1$), we observe a second order phase transition from plaquette-VBS state to paramag…
Quantum spin liquids are materials that feature quantum entangled spin correlations and avoid magnetic long-range order at T = 0 K. Particularly interesting are two-dimensional honeycomb spin lattices where a plethora of exotic quantum spin liquids have been predicted. Here, we experimentally study an effective S=1/2 Heisenberg honeycomb lattice with competing nearest and next-nearest neighbor interactions. We demonstrate that YbBr$_3$ avoids order down to at least T=100 mK and features a dynamic spin-spin correlation function with broad continuum scattering typical of quantum spin liquids nea…
Large spin cold atom systems can exhibit novel magnetic properties which do not appear in usual spin-1/2 systems. We investigate the SU(4) resonating plaquette state in the three dimensional cubic optical lattice with spin-3/2 cold fermions. A novel gauge field formalism is constructed to describe the Rokhsar-Kivelson type of Hamiltonian and a duality transformation is used to study the phase diagram. Due to the proliferation of topological defects, the system is generally gapped for the whole phase diagram of the quantum model, which agrees with the recent numerical studies. A critical line i…
Groundstate magnetism of the one-band Hubbard model on the frustrated square lattice where both nearest-neighbour $t_1$ and next-nearest-neighbour $t_2$ hoppings are considered at half-filling are revisited within mean field approximation. Two new magnetic phases are detected at intermediate strength of Hubbard $U$ and relative strong frustration of $t_2/t_1$, named double-stripe and plaquette antiferromagnetic states, both of which are metallic and stable even at finite temperature and electron doping. The nature of the phase transitions between different phases and the properties of the two …
We report a new classical spin liquid in which the collective flux degrees of freedom break the translation symmetry of the honeycomb lattice. This exotic phase exists in frustrated spin-orbit magnets where a dominant off-diagonal exchange, the so-called $Γ$ term, results in a macroscopic ground-state degeneracy at the classical level. We demonstrate that the system undergoes a phase transition driven by thermal order-by-disorder at a critical temperature $T_c \approx 0.04 |Γ|$. At first sight, this transition reduces an emergent spherical spin-symmetry to a cubic one: spins point predominantl…
The symmetry requirement and the origin of magnetic orders coexisting with superconductivity have been strongly debated issues of iron-based superconductors (FeSCs). Observation of C$_4$-symmetric antiferromagnetism in violation of the inter-band nesting condition of spin-density waves in superconducting ground state will require significant change in our understanding of the mechanism of FeSC. The superconducting material Sr$_2$VO$_3$FeAs, a bulk version of monolayer FeSC in contact with a perovskite layer with its magnetism (T$_N$ ~ 50 K) and superconductivity (T$_c$ ~ 37 K) coexisting at pa…
Using the coupled cluster method for high orders of approximation and Lanczos exact diagonalization we study the ground-state phase diagram of a quantum spin-1/2 J1-J2 model on the square lattice with plaquette structure. We consider antiferromagnetic (J1>0) as well as ferromagnetic (J1<0) nearest-neighbor interactions together with frustrating antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor interaction J2>0. The strength of inter-plaquette interaction lambda varies between lambda=1 (that corresponds to the uniform J1-J2 model) and lambda=0 (that corresponds to isolated frustrated 4-spin plaquettes). …
The phase diagram of the XXZ spin-1 quantum magnet on the kagome lattice is studied for all cases where the $J_z$ coupling is antiferromagnetic. In the zero magnetic field case, the six previously introduced phases, found using various methods, are: the nondegenerate gapped photon phase which breaks no space symmetry or spin symmetry; the six-fold degenerate phase with plaquette order, which breaks both time reversal symmetry and translational symmetry; the "superfluid" (ferromagnetic) phase with an in-plane global U(1) symmetry broken, when $J_{xy} < 0$; the $\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$ order whe…
We evaluate the Raman light scattering intensity for the square lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet with plaquette ring exchange J_\Box. With the exchange couplings as fixed before from an accurate fit to the spin-wave dispersion in La2CuO4, leading in particular to J_\Box=0.24J, we demonstrate in a parameter free calculation that the inclusion of the plaquette exchange contribution to the dispersion and the magnon-magnon interaction vertex gives a peak position in $B_{1g}$ scattering geometry E_max = 2.71J which is in excellent agreement with the experimental data. Yet, the intrinsic width and…
A mixed Ising-Heisenberg spin system consisting of triangular XXZ-Heisenberg spin clusters assembled into a chain by alternating with Ising spins interacting to all three spins in the triangle is considered. The exact solution of the model is given in terms of the generalized decoration--iteration map and within the transfer-matrix technique. Exact expressions for thermodynamic functions are derived. Ground state phase diagrams, thermodynamic and magnetic properties of the system are examined.
We study the single-orbital Hubbard model on the 1/5-depleted square lattice geometry, which arises in such diverse systems as the spin-gap magnetic insulator CaV4O9 and ordered-vacancy iron selenides, presenting new issues regarding the origin of both magnetic ordering and superconductivity in these materials. We find a rich phase diagram that includes a plaquette singlet phase, a dimer singlet phase, a Neel and a block-spin antiferromagnetic phase, and stripe phases. Quantum Monte Carlo simulations show that the dominant pairing correlations at half filling change character from d-wave in th…
We study the excitation spectrum in the dimer phase of the Shastry-Sutherland model by using an unbiased variational method that works in the thermodynamic limit. The method outputs dynamical correlation functions in all possible channels. This output is exploited to identify the order parameters with the highest susceptibility (single or multitriplon condensation in a specific channel) upon approaching a quantum phase transition in the magnetic field versus the $J'/J$ phase diagram. We find four different instabilities: antiferro spin nematic, plaquette spin nematic, stripe magnetic order, an…
We report high-resolution single-crystal inelastic neutron scattering measurements on the spin-1/2 antiferromagnet Ba(TiO)Cu$_4$(PO$_4$)$_4$. This material is formed from layers of four-site \cupola" structures, oriented alternately upwards and downwards, which constitute a rather special realization of two-dimensional (2D) square-lattice magnetism. The strong Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction within each cupola, or plaquette, unit has a geometry largely unexplored among the numerous studies of magnetic properties in 2D Heisenberg models with spin and spatial anisotropies. We have measure…
The checkerboard lattice, with alternating 'crossed' plaquettes, serves as the two dimensional analog of the pyrochlore lattice. The corner sharing plaquette structure leads to a hugely degenerate ground state, and no magnetic order, for classical spins with short range antiferromagnetic interaction. For the half-filled Hubbard model on this structure, however, we find that the Mott insulating phase involves virtual electronic processes that generate longer range and multispin couplings. These couplings lift the degeneracy, selecting a 'flux like' state in the Mott insulator. Increasing temper…
We examine the topological order in the resonating singlet valence plaquette (RSVP) phase of the hard-core quantum plaquette model (QPM) on the face centered cubic (FCC) lattice. To do this, we construct a Rohksar-Kivelson type Hamiltonian of local plaquette resonances. This model is shown to exhibit a $\mathbb{Z}_3$ topological order, which we show by identifying a $\mathbb{Z}_3$ topological constant (which leads to a $3^3$-fold topological ground state degeneracy on the $3$-torus) and topological point-like charge and loop-like magnetic excitations which obey $\mathbb{Z}_3$ statistics. We al…
We investigate the low-energy properties of the orthogonal-dimer spin chain characterized by a frustrated dimer-plaquette structure. When the competing antiferromagnetic couplings are varied, the first-order quantum phase transition occurs between the dimer and the plaquette phases, which is accompanied by nontrivial features due to frustration: besides the discontinuity in the lowest excitation gap at the transition point, a sharp level-crossing occurs for the spectrum in the plaquette phase. We further reveal that the plateau in the magnetization curve at 1/4 of the full moment dramatically …
A family of spin-orbit coupled honeycomb Mott insulators offers a playground to search for quantum spin liquids (QSLs) via bond-dependent interactions. In candidate materials, a symmetric off-diagonal $Γ$ term, close cousin of Kitaev interaction, has emerged as another source of frustration that is essential for complete understanding of these systems. However, the ground state of honeycomb $Γ$ model remains elusive, with a suggested zigzag magnetic order. Here we attempt to resolve the puzzle by perturbing the $Γ$ region with a staggered Heisenberg interaction which favours the zigzag orderin…
We study the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the square lattice with first- and second-neighbor antiferromagnetic interactions J1 and J2, which possesses a nonmagnetic region that has been debated for many years and might realize the interesting Z2 spin liquid. We use the density matrix renormalization group approach with explicit implementation of SU(2) spin rotation symmetry and study the model accurately on open cylinders with different boundary conditions. With increasing J2, we find a Neel phase, a plaquette valence-bond (PVB) phase with a finite spin gap, and a possible spin liquid in a sma…
We investigate the properties of the two-dimensional frustrated quantum antiferromagnet on the square lattice, especially at infinitesimal doping. We find that next nearest neighbor (N.N.) J2 and next-next N.N. J3 interactions together destroy the antiferromagnetic long range order and stabilize a quantum disordered valence bond crystalline plaquette phase. A static vacancy or a dynamic hole doped into this phase liberates a spinon. From the profile of the spinon wavefunction around the (static) vacancy we identify an intermediate behavior between complete deconfinement (behavior seen in the k…
We introduce a one-dimensional plaquette orbital model with a topology of a ladder and alternating interactions between $x$ and $z$ pseudospin components along both the ladder legs and on the rungs. We show that it is equivalent to an effective spin model in a magnetic field, with spin dimers that replace plaquettes and are coupled along the chain by three-spin interactions. Using perturbative treatment and mean field approaches with dimer correlations we study the ground state spin configuration and its defects in the lowest excited states. By the exact diagonalization approach we find that t…
Various multi-spin magnetic exchange interactions (MEI) of chiral nature have been recently unveiled. Owing to their potential impact on the realisation of twisted spin-textures, their implication in spintronics or quantum computing is very promising. Here, I address the long-range behavior of multi-spin MEI on the basis of a multiple-scattering formalism implementable in Green functions based methods. I consider the impact of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) as described in the one- (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) Rashba model, from which the analytical forms of the four- and six-spin interactions are…
A spin-1 Heisenberg model on trimerized Kagomé lattice is studied by doing a low-energy bosonic theory in terms of plaquette-triplons defined on its triangular unit-cells. The model has an intra-triangle antiferromagnetic exchange interaction, $J$ (set to 1), and two inter-triangle couplings, $J^\prime>0$ (nearest-neighbor) and $J^{\prime\prime}$ (next-nearest-neighbor; of both signs). The triplon analysis of this model studies the stability of the trimerized singlet (TS) ground state in the $J^\prime$-$J^{\prime\prime}$ plane. It gives a quantum phase diagram that has two gapless antiferromag…
Motivated by the recent developments on cluster Mott insulating materials such as the cluster magnet LiZn$_2$Mo$_3$O$_8$, we consider the strong plaquette charge ordered regime of the extended Hubbard model on a breathing Kagome lattice and reveal the properties of the cluster Mottness. The plaquette charge order arises from the inter-site charge interaction and the collective motion of three localized electrons on the hexagon plaquettes. This model leads naturally to a reduction of the local moments by 2/3 as observed in LiZn$_2$Mo$_3$O$_8$. Furthermore, at low temperatures each hexagon plaqu…
The dramatic growth of research areas within the province of quantum state transmission (QST) is rapidly accelerating. An important insight to understand the process of QST can be fulfilled by considering the dynamical behavior of its entanglement content. One well-established approach to continuously transfer quantum states is utilizing spin structures. Here, from the view of entanglement propagation, we disclose the signature of fractional QST possibilities. In the present work, we proposed a form of spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ triangular plaquette whose Hamiltonian entails the spin-orbit coupling on…
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 Néel 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 phas…
Sr$_2$CuTeO$_6$ is a square-lattice Néel antiferromagnet with superexchange between first-neighbor $S=1/2$ Cu spins mediated by plaquette centered Te ions. Substituting Te by W, the affected impurity plaquettes have predominantly second-neighbor interactions, thus causing local magnetic frustration. Here we report a study of Sr$_2$CuTe$_{1-x}$W$_x$O$_6$ using neutron diffraction and $μ$SR techniques, showing that the Néel order vanishes already at $x = 0.025 \pm 0.005$. We explain this extreme order suppression using a two-dimensional Heisenberg spin model, demonstrating that a W-type impurity…
We present numerical evidence that the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the two-dimensional checkerboard lattice exhibits several magnetization plateaux for m=0, 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4, where m is the magnetization normalized by its saturation value. These incompressible states correspond to somehow similar valence-bond crystal phases that break lattice symmetries, though they are different from the already established plaquette phase for m=0. Our results are based on Exact Diagonalization as well as Density Matrix Renormalization Group large-scale simulations, and interpreted in terms of simple trial w…
It was known that by a duality transformation, interaction bosons at filling factor $ f=p/q $ hopping on a lattice can be mapped to interacting vortices hopping on the dual lattice subject to a fluctuating{\em dual} " magnetic field" whose average strength through a dual plaquette is equal to the boson density $ f=p/q $.So the kinetic term of the vortices is the same as the Hofstadter problem of electrons moving in a lattice in the presence of $ f=p/q $ flux per plaquette. Motivated by this mapping, we study the Hofstadter bands of vortices hopping in the presence of magnetic flux $ f=p/q $ pe…
We present a comprehensive computational study of the phase diagram of the frustrated S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the honeycomb lattice, with second-nearest (J2) and third-neighbor (J3) couplings. Using a combination of exact diagonalizations of the original spin model, of the Hamiltonian projected into the nearest neighbor short range valence bond basis, and of an effective quantum dimer model, as well as a self-consistent cluster mean-field theory, we determine the boundaries of several magnetically ordered phases in the region J2,J3\in [0,1], and find a sizable magnetically disorder…
We show the importance of both strong frustration and spin-lattice coupling for the stabilization of magnetization plateaus in translationally invariant two-dimensional systems. We consider a frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg model coupled to adiabatic phonons under an external magnetic field. At zero magnetization, simple structures with two or at most four spins per unit cell are stabilized, forming dimers or $2 \times 2$ plaquettes, respectively. A much richer scenario is found in the case of magnetization $m=1/2$, where larger unit cells are formed with non-trivial spin textures and an analog…
Using variational wave functions and Monte Carlo techniques, we study the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model with first-neighbor $J_1$ and second-neighbor $J_2$ antiferromagnetic couplings on the honeycomb lattice. We perform a systematic comparison of magnetically ordered and nonmagnetic states (spin liquids and valence-bond solids) to obtain the ground-state phase diagram. Néel order is stabilized for small values of the frustrating second-neighbor coupling. Increasing the ratio $J_2/J_1$, we find strong evidence for a continuous transition to a nonmagnetic phase at $J_2/J_1 \approx 0.23$. C…
