We derive exact results for close-packed dimers on the triangular kagome lattice (TKL), formed by inserting triangles into the triangles of the kagome lattice. Because the TKL is a nonbipartite lattice, dimer-dimer correlations are short ranged so that the ground state at the Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) point of the corresponding quantum dimer model on the same lattice is a short-ranged spin liquid. Using the Pfaffian method, we derive an exact form for the free energy, and we find that the entropy is $\frac{1}{3}\text{ln}\text{ }2$ per site, regardless of the weights of the bonds. The occupation probability of every bond is $\frac{1}{4}$ in the case of equal weights on every bond. Similar to the case of lattices formed by corner-sharing triangles (such as the kagome and squagome lattices), we find that the dimer-dimer correlation function is identically zero beyond a certain (short) distance. We find in addition that monomers are deconfined on the TKL, indicating that there is a short-ranged spin liquid phase at the RK point. We also find exact results for the ground-state energy of the classical Heisenberg model. The ground state can be ferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic, locally coplanar, or locally canted, depending on the couplings. From the dimer model and the classical spin model, we derive upper bounds on the ground-state energy of the quantum Heisenberg model on the TKL.
We derive exact results for close-packed dimers on the triangular kagome lattice (TKL), formed by inserting triangles into the triangles of the kagome lattice. Because the TKL is a nonbipartite lattice, dimer-dimer correlations are short ranged so that the ground state at the Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) point of the corresponding quantum dimer model on the same lattice is a short-ranged spin liquid. Using the Pfaffian method, we derive an exact form for the free energy, and we find that the entropy is 31ln2 per site, regardless of the weights of the bonds. The occupation probability of every bond is 41 in the case of equal weights on every bond. Similar to the case of lattices formed by corner-sharing triangles (such as the kagome and squagome lattices), we find that the dimer-dimer correlation function is identically zero beyond a certain (short) distance. We find in addition that monomers are deconfined on the TKL, indicating that there is a short-ranged spin liquid phase at the RK point. We also find exact results for the ground-state energy of the classical Heisenberg model. The ground state can be ferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic, locally coplanar, or locally canted, depending on the couplings. From the dimer model and the classical spin model, we derive upper bounds on the ground-state energy of the quantum Heisenberg model on the TKL.
We consider dimers on the star lattice (aka the 3-12, Fisher, expanded kagome or triangle-honeycomb lattice). We show that dimer coverings on this lattice have Z_2 arrow and pseudo-spin representations analogous to those for the kagome lattice, and use these to construct an exactly solvable quantum dimer model (QDM) with a Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) ground state. This QDM, first discussed by Moessner and Sondhi from a different point of view, is the star-lattice analogue of a kagome-lattice QDM analyzed by Misguich et al. We give a detailed analysis of various properties of the classical equal-weight dimer model on the star lattice, most of which are related to those of the RK state. Using both the arrow representation and the fermionic path integral formulation of the Pfaffian method, we calculate the number of dimer coverings, dimer occupation probabilities, and dimer, vison, and monomer correlation functions. We show that a dimer is uncorrelated with dimers further away than on neighboring triangles, that the vison-vison correlation function vanishes, and that the monomer-monomer correlation function equals 1/4 regardless of the monomer positions (with one exception). A key result in the fermionic approach is the vanishing of the two-point Green function beyond a short distance. These properties are very similar to those of dimers on the kagome lattice. We also discuss some generalizations involving arrow representations for dimer coverings on general Fisher lattices and their reduced lattices, with the kagome, squagome, and triangular kagome lattice being examples of the latter.
We consider dimers on the star lattice (aka the 3-12, Fisher, expanded kagome or triangle-honeycomb lattice). We show that dimer coverings on this lattice have Z_2 arrow and pseudo-spin representations analogous to those for the kagome lattice, and use these to construct an exactly solvable quantum dimer model (QDM) with a Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) ground state. This QDM, first discussed by Moessner and Sondhi from a different point of view, is the star-lattice analogue of a kagome-lattice QDM analyzed by Misguich et al. We give a detailed analysis of various properties of the classical equal-weight dimer model on the star lattice, most of which are related to those of the RK state. Using both the arrow representation and the fermionic path integral formulation of the Pfaffian method, we calculate the number of dimer coverings, dimer occupation probabilities, and dimer, vison, and monomer correlation functions. We show that a dimer is uncorrelated with dimers further away than on neighboring triangles, that the vison-vison correlation function vanishes, and that the monomer-monomer correlation function equals 1/4 regardless of the monomer positions (with one exception). A key result in the fermionic approach is the vanishing of the two-point Green function beyond a short distance. These properties are very similar to those of dimers on the kagome lattice. We also discuss some generalizations involving arrow representations for dimer coverings on "general Fisher lattices" and their "reduced" lattices, with the kagome, squagome, and triangular kagome lattice being examples of the latter.
We consider the triangular kagome XXZ-Ising model (TKL XXZ-Ising model) formed by inserting small triangles ("a-trimers") with XXZ spin-1 inside the triangles of the kagome lattice ("b-trimers"). It is a mixed spin system and can be solved exactly by transforming into the kagome lattice with the general transformation method for decorated spin systems. In the absence of an external field, we integrate out the quantum spins of the a-trimers and map the TKL model to the kagome Ising model exactly. We obtain the full phase diagram and their zero-temperature entropies (e.g., s_{max}=5.48895 per unit cell is given for the phase with the maximum entropy). When an external field is applied, 20 phases are found due to the quantum fluctuations of a-trimers. Moreover, the high spins in the a-trimers can lead to a stable quantized growth of the magnetization process in the Heisenberg limit.
Strongly correlated systems on geometrically frustrated lattices can stabilize a large number of interesting phases that includes a wide array of novel Mott insulators in both bosonic and electronic systems. Charge fluctuations in a Mott insulator are suppressed due to strong mutual interaction among the particles. The presence of frustration is of particular importance as the physics it offers is often rich, unexpectedly complicated, and continues to raise many open questions. The thesis elucidates some of these issues on a kagome lattice where strong interactions among the particles in the Mott phase impose non-trivial local constraints depending on the filling fraction on the lattice. These Mott insulators, in addition to featuring unusual magnetic and/or charge ordering, can also harbor topologically ordered states of quantum matter, e.g., resonating valence bond liquids realized in certain quantum dimer models on non-bipartite lattices. The dimer models can be regarded as low-energy effective theories for different types of bosonic models in the strong-coupling limit. Exploring this connection is a central theme of this thesis with the aim of realizing novel strongly correlated ground states. Past studies of these models have revealed the existence of various ordered and disordered phases with distinct signatures. Among these low-energy phases, the presence of a stable topological liquid at a particular point, known as Rokhsar-Kivelson point, in the phase diagram is notable. The classical versions of the dimer model are also known to have garnered a vast interest in various fields ranging from problems of pure mathematical origin to ones in physical chemistry as well as statistical physics. Pioneered by Kasteleyn, several analytical works came forward to exactly calculate the partition function of the problem from which other physical observables can be derived. Classical numerical methods are extensively applied to these models to verify the analytical predictions. We introduce a new classical algorithm here to compute the correlation functions of a classical dimer model on a square (bipartite) and a triangular (non-bipartite) lattice based on a tensor network construction. The method, called tensor network renormalization group, turns out to be a powerful tool for simulating short-ranged gapped systems as inferred from our results benchmarked against the classical Monte-Carlo technique and compared with past analytical studies. One should note that the quantum dimer model at the Rokhsar-Kivelson point can also be described as an infinite temperature canonical ensemble of classical dimers because of the particular structure of the ground state which is an equal weight superposition in the configuration manifold. The geometry of the lattice plays a pivotal role in deciding the nature of the phases that arise in the dimer models. Many physical properties of the dimer liquid phase can be extracted in the simple classical setting which certainly allows for a deep understanding of the classical models to be developed. The liquid phase is gapped on non-bipartite lattices and gapless on bipartite lattices, which is reflected in the decay of correlation functions with spatial distances. In general on non-bipartite lattices, the topological nature of the dimer liquid is characterized by a Z2 topological order which survives even when the model is perturbed away from the Rokhsar-Kivelson point. Stability of this liquid phase not only depends on the lattice geometries but notably on dimer concentrations also. In this context, we focus on a particular variant of the dimer model on a triangular lattice which is known as the quantum fully packed loop model. The model is composed of nonintersecting closed loops made of dimers and governed by the same Hamiltonian as the quantum dimer model. The loop model provides an effective low-energy description of a strongly correlated bosonic system at 1/3 filling on the kagome lattice. The corresponding Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian consists of nearest-neighbor hopping and all possible repulsive interactions within a hexagonal plaquette. Conspicuous features of the zero-temperature phase diagram for this model include (i) presence of a stable Z2 liquid even without any Rokhsar-Kivelson potential term (in distinction to the standard quantum dimer model), and (ii) an unconventional phase transition from the liquid phase to a novel crystalline phase that has nematic order (dubbed lattice nematic). For a deeper understanding of the physics, a mapping to an Ising gauge theory is presented. The gauge theoretic description provides a useful way to predict the nature of the quantum phase transition to lie in the O(3) universality class. Finally a fermionic model at the same 1/3 filling is considered in which the ground state exhibits a number of exotic local orderings resulting from the spin-charge interplay of electrons. The Hamiltonian comprises nearest-neighbor hopping, strong on-site Coulomb interaction, and repulsive interaction terms only between nearest-neighbors. In the strong correlation limit, this fermionic problem maps to a two-color fully packed loop model – a model in which the loop segments carry an additional quantum number as color on a honeycomb lattice. The effective theory is governed by coherent three-particle ring exchanges and nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic spin exchanges. The competition between these two leads to a phase diagram composed of a novel plaquette ordered state (known as the plaquette phase) that undergoes phase transition to a new kind of charge ordered state which we call a short loop phase. From our numerical analysis, we conclude that the plaquette phase features an unusual antiferromagnetic order with gapless spin excitations while the charge-ordered state is subjugated by spin fluctuations of localized electrons arranged in small hexagonal loops on the kagome lattice.
We consider a family of generalized Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) Hamiltonians, which are reverse-engineered to have an arbitrary edge-weighted superposition of dimer coverings as their exact ground state at the RK point. We focus on a quantum dimer model on the triangular lattice, with doubly periodic edge weights. For simplicity we consider a 2×1 periodic model in which all weights are set to one except for a tunable horizontal edge weight labeled α. We analytically show that the model exhibits a continuous quantum phase transition at α=3, changing from a topological Z2 quantum spin liquid (α<3) to a columnar ordered state (α>3). The dimer-dimer correlator decays exponentially on both sides of the transition with the correlation length ξ∝1/∣α−3∣ and as a power-law at criticality. The vison correlator exhibits an exponential decay in the spin liquid phase, but becomes a constant in the ordered phase, which we explain in terms of loop statistics of the double-dimer model. Using finite-size scaling of the vison correlator, we extract critical exponents consistent with the 2D Ising universality class. Additionally, we analytically show that the topological Rényi entropy of order ∞ (topological min-entropy) changes from log2 for the quantum spin liquid phase α<3, to 0 for the ordered phase α>3, thereby analytically confirming the topological nature of the phase transition.
The spin-21 Heisenberg model on the kagome lattice, which is closely realized in layered Mott insulators such as ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2, is one of the oldest and most enigmatic spin-21 lattice models. While the numerical evidence has accumulated in favor of a quantum spin liquid, the debate is still open as to whether it is a Z2 spin liquid with very short-range correlations (some kind of resonating valence bond spin liquid), or an algebraic spin liquid with power-law correlations. To address this issue, we have pushed the program started by Rokhsar and Kivelson in their derivation of the effective quantum dimer model description of Heisenberg models to unprecedented accuracy for the spin-21 kagome, by including all the most important virtual singlet contributions on top of the orthogonalization of the nearest-neighbor valence bond singlet basis. Quite remarkably, the resulting picture is a competition between a Z2 spin liquid and a diamond valence bond crystal with a 12-site unit cell, as in the density-matrix renormalization group simulations of Yan et al. Furthermore, we found that, on cylinders of finite diameter d, there is a transition between the Z2 spin liquid at small d and the diamond valence bond crystal at large d, the prediction of the present microscopic description for the two-dimensional lattice. These results show that, if the ground state of the spin-21 kagome antiferromagnet can be described by nearest-neighbor singlet dimers, it is a diamond valence bond crystal, and, a contrario, that, if the system is a quantum spin liquid, it has to involve long-range singlets, consistent with the algebraic spin liquid scenario.