We presents the results of an extensive numerical study of the phase diagram of the spin-1/2, J 1 - J 2 - J 3 Heisenberg model on a square lattice, for both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic nearest-neighbor interactions J 1 , using exact diagonalization with periodic and twisted boundary conditions. Comparison is made with published spin wave calculations. We show that quantum fluctuations play a very important role, changing both the extent and the wave vector of classical spiral phases, and leading to new quantum phases where the classical spiral states have a high degeneracy. These include a new phase with small or vanishing spin-stiffness, in addition to known valence-bond-solid and bond-nematic phases.
In this work the ordering processes in classical frustrated Ising models and the ground-state behavior of frustrated quantum spin models are investigated. In the first part the phase transition from a high-temperature paramagnetic phase to a antiferromagnetic ground state is analyzed for the square-lattice Ising model with competing antiferromagnetic interactions between nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor spins. In the case of spatially isotropic interactions the phase transition to a collinear state is of special interest. Using Monte-Carlo simulations on finite lattices as well as field-theoretical methods for the continuous model it is shown that depending on the frustration three different sectors can be distinguished that show (i) Ising-universal behavior (ii) Ashkin-Teller-like non-universal behavior (varying critical exponents) and (iii) non-critical first-order behavior. For spatially anisotropic interactions the emergence of an intermediate incommensurate phase is verified by means of Monte-Carlo simulations which has been predicted by earlier mean-field calculations. The nature of this phase is studied analyzing spin-spin correlation functions and its ordering wave-vector reveals a strong temperature and size dependence. In the second part the influence of quantum fluctuations on classical antiferromagnetic ground states are investigated in anisotropic quantum spin-1/2 Heisenberg models with competing interactions. Using quantum Monte-Carlo simulations, exact diagonalization and perturbation theory the ground-state phase diagrams are calculated for a square lattice with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor interactions and a honeycomb lattice with up to third-nearest-neighbor interactions whereby the fluctuations are chosen to be non-frustrating. For both cases the stability regions of classical magnetic states are identified and an intermediate phase is detected that shows no sign of long-range magnetic order. Further calculations also rule out valence-bond-crystal or topological order for this state, thus a quantum disordered ground state is stabilized in these models.
We use the finite projected entangled pair state (PEPS) method to investigate the global phase diagram of the spin-
21 square-lattice ${J}_{1}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{2}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{3}$ antiferromagnetic (AFM) Heisenberg model. The ground-state phase diagram is established with a rich variety of phases: the N\'eel AFM, gapless quantum spin liquid, valence-bond solid (VBS), stripe AFM, and incommensurate spiral phases. The nature of the VBS region is revealed, which contains a plaquette VBS and a mixed columnar-plaquette VBS, with the emergence of short-range incommensurate spin correlation in some region. The long-range incommensurate magnetic phase is also explicitly characterized as a planar spiral with incommensurate spatial periodicities. Most interestingly, there exist several multicritical points connecting different phases. These findings elucidate the true nature of the long-standing square-lattice ${J}_{1}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{2}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{3}$ antiferromagnet at zero temperature. Our results also pave the way to accurately simulate complex two-dimensional quantum spin systems that may host nonuniform features by means of the finite PEPS.
Using the coupled cluster method (CCM) we study the full (zero-temperature) ground-state (GS) phase diagram of a spin-half (
s=21)
J1-
J2 Heisenberg model on a cross-striped square lattice. Each site of the square lattice has four nearest-neighbor exchange bonds of strength
J1 and two next-nearest-neighbor (diagonal) bonds of strength
J2. The
J2 bonds are arranged so that the basic square plaquettes in alternating columns have either both or no
J2 bonds included. The classical ($s\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty}$) version of the model has four collinear phases when
J1 and
J2 can take either sign. Three phases are antiferromagnetic (AFM), showing so-called N\'eel, double N\'eel, and double columnar striped order, respectively, while the fourth is ferromagnetic. For the quantum
s=21 model we use the three classical AFM phases as CCM reference states, on top of which the multispin-flip configurations arising from quantum fluctuations are incorporated in a systematic truncation hierarchy. Calculations of the corresponding GS energy, magnetic order parameter, and the susceptibilities of the states to various forms of valence-bond crystalline (VBC) order are thus carried out numerically to high orders of approximation and then extrapolated to the (exact) physical limit. We find that the
s=21 model has five phases, which correspond to the four classical phases plus a new quantum phase with plaquette VBC order. The positions of the five quantum critical points are determined with high accuracy. While all four phase transitions in the classical model are first order, we find strong evidence that three of the five quantum phase transitions in the
s=21 model are of continuous deconfined type.
We study the zero-temperature phase diagram and the low-lying excitations of a square-lattice spin-half Heisenberg antiferromagnet with two types of regularly distributed nearest-neighbor exchange bonds
[J>0 (antiferromagnetic) and $\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\infty}<{J}^{\ensuremath{'}}<\ensuremath{\infty}]$ using the coupled cluster method (CCM) for high orders of approximation (up to LSUB8). We use a N\'eel model state as well as a helical model state as a starting point for the CCM calculations. We find a second-order transition from a phase with N\'eel order to a finite-gap quantum disordered phase for sufficiently large antiferromagnetic exchange constants ${J}^{\ensuremath{'}}>0.$ For frustrating ferromagnetic couplings ${J}^{\ensuremath{'}}<0$ we find indications that quantum fluctuations favor a first-order phase transition from the N\'eel order to a quantum helical state, by contrast with the corresponding second-order transition in the corresponding classical model. The results are compared to those of exact diagonalizations of finite systems (up to 32 sites) and those of spin-wave and variational calculations. The CCM results agree well with the exact diagonalization data over the whole range of the parameters. The special case of ${J}^{\ensuremath{'}}=0,$ which is equivalent to the honeycomb lattice, is treated more closely.
The spin-
1/2 anisotropic triangular model, which is believed to describe the materials
Cs2CuCl4 and
Cs2CuBr4, among others, is dominated by incommensurate spiral physics and is thus extremely resistant to numerical analysis on small system sizes. In this paper, we use twisted boundary conditions and exact diagonalization techniques to study the ground state of this model as a function of exchange parameter strength. With these boundary conditions we are able to extract the inter- and intrachain ordering
q vectors for the $\frac{{J}^{\ensuremath{'}}}{J}<1$ region finding very close agreement with recent DMRG results on much larger systems. Our results suggest a phase transition between a long-range incommensurate spiral ordered phase, and a more subtle phase with short-range spiral correlations with the
q vector describing the incommensurate correlations varying smoothly through the transition. In the latter phase correlations between next-nearest chains exhibit an extremely close competition between predominantly antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic correlations. Further analysis suggests that the antiferromagnetic next-nearest chain correlations may be slightly stronger than the ferromagnetic ones. This difference is found to be slight but in line with previous renormalization group predictions of a collinear antiferromagnetic ordering in this region.