arXiv:1204.6658 · New Journal of Physics
Evidence of a spin liquid with hard-core bosons in a square lattice
Y-H Chan, L-M Duan
Abstract
We show that laser-assisted hopping of hard-core bosons in a square optical lattice can be described by an antiferromagnetic J 1 – J 2 XY model with a tunable ratio of J 2 / J 1 . We numerically investigated the phase diagram of the J 1 – J 2 XY model using both the tensor network algorithm for infinite systems and the exact diagonalization for small clusters and found strong evidence that in the intermediate region around J 2 / J 1 ∼ 0.5, there is a spin liquid phase with vanishing magnetization and valence bond orders, which interconnects the Néel state on the J 2 ≪ J 1 side and the stripe antiferromagnetic phase on the J 2 ≫ J 1 side. This finding opens up the possibility of studying the exotic spin liquid phase in a realistic experimental system using ultracold atoms in an optical lattice.