We present the zero-temperature phase diagram of a Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a frustrated triangular lattice with nearest-neighbor
(J1) and next-nearest-neighbor
(J2) interactions, in a magnetic field. We show that the classical model has an accidental degeneracy for all
J2/J1 and all fields, but the degeneracy is lifted by quantum fluctuations. We show that at large spin
S, for
J2/J1<1/8, quantum fluctuations select the same sequence of three sublattice co-planar states in a field as for
J2=0, and for
1/8<J2/J1<1, they select the canted stripe state for all nonzero fields. The transition between the two states is first order in all fields, with the hysteresis width set by quantum fluctuations. We study the model with arbitrary
S, including
S=1/2, near the saturation field by exploring the fact that near saturation the density of bosons is small for all
S. We show that for
S>1, the transition remains first order, with a finite hysteresis width, but for
S=1/2 and, possibly,
S=1, there appears a new intermediate phase without a quasiclassical long-range order.
Quantum magnetic phases near the magnetic saturation of triangular-lattice antiferromagnets with XXZ anisotropy have been attracting renewed interest since it has been suggested that a nontrivial coplanar phase, called the $\ensuremath{\pi}$-coplanar or $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}$ phase, could be stabilized by quantum effects in a certain range of anisotropy parameter
J/Jz besides the well-known 0-coplanar (known also as
V) and umbrella phases. Recently, Sellmann et al. [Phys. Rev. B 91, 081104(R) (2015)] claimed that the $\ensuremath{\pi}$-coplanar phase is absent for
S=1/2 from an exact-diagonalization analysis in the sector of the Hilbert space with only three down-spins (three magnons). We first reconsider and improve this analysis by taking into account several low-lying eigenvalues and the associated eigenstates as a function of
J/Jz and by sensibly increasing the system sizes (up to 1296 spins). A careful identification analysis shows that the lowest eigenstate is a chirally antisymmetric combination of finite-size umbrella states for $J/{J}_{z}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}2.218$ while it corresponds to a coplanar phase for $J/{J}_{z}\ensuremath{\lesssim}2.218$. However, we demonstrate that the distinction between 0-coplanar and $\ensuremath{\pi}$-coplanar phases in the latter region is fundamentally impossible from the symmetry-preserving finite-size calculations with fixed magnon number. Therefore, we also perform a cluster mean-field plus scaling analysis for small spins $S\ensuremath{\le}3/2$. The obtained results, together with the previous large-
S analysis, indicate that the $\ensuremath{\pi}$-coplanar phase exists for any
S except for the classical limit $(S\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\infty})$ and the existence range in
J/Jz is largest in the most quantum case of
S=1/2.
The phase diagram of the anisotropic quantum spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet in the presence of competitive nearest
(J1)- and next-nearest $({J}_{2}=\ensuremath{\alpha}{J}_{1})$-neighbor interactions on a simple cubic lattice is studied within the framework of the differential operator technique. The Hamiltonian is solved by using an effective-field theory in a two-spin cluster. We propose a function for the free energy, which is similar to the Landau expansion, in order to find the ground state
(T=0) and the finite-
T phase diagram. At zero temperature, we find a first-order quantum phase transition in the point ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}(\ensuremath{\Delta})$ between the antiferromagnetic (AF) and superantiferromagnetic (SAF) phases. This is dependent on the anisotropy parameter $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ ($\ensuremath{\Delta}=0$ and 1 correspond to the isotropic Heisenberg and Ising models, respectively). The quantum critical values of ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}(\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\ne}1)={\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}^{q}(\ensuremath{\Delta})$ are smaller than those of the classical model ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}(\ensuremath{\Delta}=1)={\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}^{c}=1/4$ (for example, for $\ensuremath{\Delta}=0$, we find ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}^{q}(0)=0.21$). The former monotonically increases with the anisotropy parameter $\ensuremath{\Delta}$. The phase diagram in $T\text{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\alpha}$ plane presents a second-order transition at ${T}_{2}(\ensuremath{\alpha})$ between the AF and paramagnetic (P) phases. The phase transition between the SAF and P phases is of first-order ${T}_{1}(\ensuremath{\alpha})$ for all values of $\ensuremath{\Delta}∊[0,1]$. The phase transition lines ${T}_{1}(\ensuremath{\alpha})$ and ${T}_{2}(\ensuremath{\alpha})$ merge in a critical end point (CEP) that is dependent on $\ensuremath{\Delta}$ [i.e., ${T}_{\text{CEP}}(\ensuremath{\Delta})$ and ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{\text{CEP}}(\ensuremath{\Delta})$ are the temperature and frustration parameters at the CEP]. The ordered phases (AF and SAF) are separated by first-order transitions and exhibit a nontrivial re-entrant behavior at low temperatures.
We study the zero-temperature phase diagram of the J 1 XXZ – J 2 XXZ Heisenberg model for spin-1 particles on an infinite square lattice interacting via nearest-neighbour ( ) and next-nearest-neighbour ( J 2 >0) bonds. The two bonds have the same XXZ -type anisotropy in spin space. The effects on the quasiclassical Néel-ordered and collinear stripe-ordered states of varying the anisotropy parameter Δ are investigated using the coupled cluster method carried out up to high orders. By contrast with the case for spin- particles studied previously, no intermediate disordered phase between the Néel and collinear stripe phases, for any value of the frustration J 2 / J 1 , for either the z -aligned (Δ>1) or xy -planar-aligned (0≤Δ<1) states, is predicted here. The quantum phase transition is determined as first order for all values of J 2 / J 1 and Δ. The position of the phase boundary J 2 c (Δ) is determined accurately. It is observed to deviate most from its classical position (for all values of Δ>0) at the Heisenberg isotropic point (Δ = 1), where J 2 c (1) = 0.55 ± 0.01. By contrast, at the XY isotropic point (Δ = 0), we find J 2 c (0) = 0.50 ± 0.01. In the Ising limit ( ), as expected.
Using the coupled-cluster method for infinite lattices and the exact diagonalization method for finite lattices, we study the influence of an exchange anisotropy Δ on the ground-state phase diagram of the spin-1/2 frustrated J 1 - J 2 XXZ antiferromagnet on the square lattice. We find that increasing Δ > 1 (i.e. an Ising type easy-axis anisotropy) as well as decreasing Δ < 1 (i.e. an XY type easy-plane anisotropy) both lead to a monotonic shrinking of the parameter region of the magnetically disordered quantum phase. Finally, at Δ c ≈ 1.9 this quantum phase disappears, whereas in the pure XY limit (Δ = 0) there is still a narrow region around J 2 = 0.5 J 1 where the quantum paramagnetic ground-state phase exists.