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arXiv:1402.5425 · Physical Review Letters

Fractionalized Charge Excitations in a Spin Liquid on Partially Filled Pyrochlore Lattices

Gang Chen, Hae‐Young Kee, Yong Baek Kim

Published Nov 7, 2014• 26 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study the Mott transition from a metal to cluster Mott insulators in the 1/4- and 1/8-filled pyrochlore lattice systems [corrected]. It is shown that such Mott transitions can arise due to charge localization in clusters or in tetrahedron units, driven by the nearest-neighbor repulsive interaction. The resulting cluster Mott insulator is a quantum spin liquid with a spinon Fermi surface, but at the same time a novel fractionalized charge liquid with charge excitations carrying half the electron charge. There exist two emergent U(1) gauge fields or "photons" that mediate interactions between spinons and charge excitations, and between fractionalized charge excitations themselves, respectively. In particular, it is suggested that the emergent photons associated with the fractionalized charge excitations can be measured in x-ray scattering experiments. Various other experimental signatures of the exotic cluster Mott insulator are discussed in light of candidate materials with partially filled bands on the pyrochlore lattice.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.113.197202

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We study the Mott transition from a metal to cluster Mott insulators in the 1/4- and 1/8-filled pyrochlore lattice systems [corrected]. It is shown that such Mott transitions can arise due to charge localization in clusters or in tetrahedron units, driven by the nearest-neighbor repulsive interaction. The resulting cluster Mott insulator is a quantum spin liquid with a spinon Fermi surface, but at the same time a novel fractionalized charge liquid with charge excitations carrying half the electron charge. There exist two emergent U(1) gauge fields or "photons" that mediate interactions between spinons and charge excitations, and between fractionalized charge excitations themselves, respectively. In particular, it is suggested that the emergent photons associated with the fractionalized charge excitations can be measured in x-ray scattering experiments. Various other experimental signatures of the exotic cluster Mott insulator are discussed in light of candidate materials with partially filled bands on the pyrochlore lattice.
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Motivated by recent experiments on the quantum-spin-liquid candidate material LiZn2Mo3O8{\mathrm{LiZn}}_{2}{\mathrm{Mo}}_{3}{\mathrm{O}}_{8}LiZn2​Mo3​O8​, we study a single-band extended Hubbard model on an anisotropic kagome lattice with the 16\frac{1}{6}61​ electron filling. Due to the partial filling of the lattice, the intersite repulsive interaction is necessary to generate Mott insulators, where electrons are localized in clusters rather than at lattice sites. It is shown that these cluster Mott insulators are generally U(1) quantum spin liquids with spinon Fermi surfaces. The nature of charge excitations in cluster Mott insulators can be quite different from conventional Mott insulator and we show that there exists a cluster Mott insulator where charge fluctuations around the hexagonal cluster induce a plaquette charge order (PCO). The spinon excitation spectrum in this spin-liquid cluster Mott insulator is reconstructed due to the PCO so that only 13\frac{1}{3}31​ of the total spinon excitations are magnetically active. Based on these results, we propose that the two Curie-Weiss regimes of the spin susceptibility in LiZn2Mo3O8{\mathrm{LiZn}}_{2}{\mathrm{Mo}}_{3}{\mathrm{O}}_{8}LiZn2​Mo3​O8​ may be explained by finite-temperature properties of the cluster Mott insulator with the PCO as well as fractionalized spinon excitations. Existing and possible future experiments on LiZn2Mo3O8{\mathrm{LiZn}}_{2}{\mathrm{Mo}}_{3}{\mathrm{O}}_{8}LiZn2​Mo3​O8​, and other Mo-based cluster magnets are discussed in light of these theoretical predictions.
We study the physics of hard-core bosons with unfrustrated hopping (t) and nearest-neighbor repulsion (V) on the three dimensional pyrochlore lattice. At half-filling, we demonstrate that the small V/t superfluid state eventually becomes unstable at large enough V/t to an unusual insulating state which displays no broken lattice translation symmetry. Equal time and static density correlators in this insulator are well described by a mapping to electric field correlators in the Coulomb phase of a U(1) lattice gauge theory, allowing us to identify this insulator with a U(1) fractionalized Mott-insulating state. The possibility of observing this phase in suitably designed atom-trap experiments with ultracold atoms is also discussed, as are specific experimental signatures.
We discuss the appearance of quantum orders in the Hubbard model for interacting electrons, at half-filling. Such phases do not have local order parameters and need to be characterized by the quantum mechanical properties of their ground state. On one hand, we study the Mott transition from a metal to a spin liquid insulator in two dimensions, of potential relevance to some layered organic compounds. The correlation-driven transition occurs at fixed filling and involves fractionalization of the electron: upon entering the insulator, a Fermi surface of neutral spinons coupled to an internal gauge field emerges. We focus on the transport properties near the quantum critical point and find that the emergent gauge fluctuations play a key role in determining the universal scaling. Second, motivated by a class of three-dimensional transition metal oxides, the pyrochlore iridates, we study the interplay of non-trivial band topology and correlations. Building on the strong spin orbit coupling in these compounds, we construct a general microscopic Hubbard model and determine its mean-field phase diagram, which contains topological insulators, Weyl semimetals, axion insulators and various antiferromagnets. We also discuss the effects many-body correlations on theses phases. We close by examining a fractionalized topological insulator that combines the two main themes of the thesis: fractionalization and non-trivial band topology. Specifically, we study how the two-dimensional protected surface states of a topological Mott insulator interact with a three-dimensional emergent gauge field. Various correlation effects on observables are identified.
We consider quantum phase transitions out of topological Mott insulators in which the ground state of the fractionalized excitations (fermionic spinons) is topologically non-trivial. The spinons in topological Mott insulators are coupled to an emergent compact U(1) gauge field with a so-called 'axion' term. We study the confinement transitions from the topological Mott insulator to broken symmetry phases, which may occur via the condensation of dyons. Dyons carry both 'electric' and 'magnetic' charges, and arise naturally in this system because the monopoles of the emergent U(1) gauge theory acquire gauge charge due to the axion term. It is shown that the dyon condensate, in general, induces simultaneous current and bond orders. To demonstrate this, we study the confined phase of the topological Mott insulator on the cubic lattice. When the magnetic transition is driven by dyon condensation, we identify the bond order as valence bond solid order and the current order as scalar spin chirality order. Hence, the confined phase of the topological Mott insulator is an exotic phase where the scalar spin chirality and the valence bond order coexist and appear via a single transition. We discuss the implications of our results for generic models of topological Mott insulators.