We present a detailed analysis of the KitaevHeisenberg model on a single hexagon.The energy spectra and spinspin correlations obtained using exact diagonalisation indicate quantum phase transitions between antiferromagnetic and anisotropic spin correlations when the Kitaev interactions increase.In cluster mean-eld approach frustrated nearest neighbor exchange stabilizes the stripe phase in between the Néel phase and frustrated one which evolves towards the Kitaev spin liquid.
We present a detailed analysis of the KitaevHeisenberg model on a single hexagon.The energy spectra and spinspin correlations obtained using exact diagonalisation indicate quantum phase transitions between antiferromagnetic and anisotropic spin correlations when the Kitaev interactions increase.In cluster mean-eld approach frustrated nearest neighbor exchange stabilizes the stripe phase in between the Néel phase and frustrated one which evolves towards the Kitaev spin liquid.
We explore the phase diagram of the Kitaev-Heisenberg model with nearest neighbor interactions on the honeycomb lattice using the exact diagonalization of finite systems combined with the cluster mean field approximation, and supplemented by the insights from analytic approaches: the linear spin-wave and second-order perturbation theories. This study confirms that by varying the balance between the Heisenberg and Kitaev term, frustrated exchange interactions stabilize in this model either one of four phases with magnetic long range order: N\'eel phase, ferromagnetic phase, and two other phases with coexisting antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic bonds, zigzag and stripy phase, or one of two distinct spin-liquid phases. Out of these latter disordered phases, the one with ferromagnetic Kitaev interactions has a substantially broader range of stability as the neighboring competing ordered phases, ferromagnetic and stripy, have very weak quantum fluctuations. Focusing on the quantum spin-liquid phases, we study spatial spin correlations and dynamic spin structure factor of the model by the exact diagonalization technique, and discuss the evolution of gapped low-energy spin response across the quantum phase transitions between the disordered spin liquid and phases with long range magnetic order.
We study the ground-state properties of the Kitaev-Heisenberg model in a magnetic field and explore the evolution of spin correlations in the presence of nonmagnetic vacancies. By means of exact diagonalizations, the phase diagram without vacancies is determined as a function of the magnetic field and the ratio between Kitaev and Heisenberg interactions. We show that, in the (antiferromagnetic) stripe-ordered phase, the static susceptibility and its anisotropy can be described by a spin canting mechanism. This accounts as well for the transition to the polarized phase when including quantum fluctuations perturbatively. Effects of spin vacancies depend sensitively on the type of the ground state. In the liquid phase, the magnetization pattern around a single vacancy in a small field is determined, and its spatial anisotropy is related to that of nonzero further neighbor correlations induced by the field and/or Heisenberg interactions. In the stripe phase, the joint effect of a vacancy and a small field breaks the sixfold symmetry of the model and stabilizes a particular stripe pattern. Similar symmetry-breaking effects occur even at zero field due to effective interactions between vacancies. This selection mechanism and intrinsic randomness of vacancy positions may lead to spin-glass behavior.
The proliferation of quantum fluctuations and long-range entanglement presents an outstanding challenge for the numerical simulation of interacting spin systems with exotic ground states. Here, we present a toolset of Chebyshev polynomial-based iterative methods that provides a unified framework to study the thermodynamical properties, critical behavior and dynamics of frustrated quantum spin models with controlled accuracy. Similar to previous applications of the Chebyshev spectral methods to condensed matter systems, the algorithmic complexity scales linearly with the Hilbert space dimension and the Chebyshev truncation order. Using this approach, we study two paradigmatic quantum spin models on the honeycomb lattice: the Kitaev-Heisenberg (K-H) and the Kitaev-Ising (K-I) models. We start by applying the Chebyshev toolset to compute nearest-neighbor spin correlations, specific heat and entropy of the K-H model on a 24-spin cluster. Our results are benchmarked against exact diagonalization and a popular iterative method based on thermal pure quantum states. The transitions between a variety of magnetic phases, namely ferromagnetic, Néel, zigzag and stripy antiferromagnetic and quantum spin liquid phases are obtained accurately and efficiently. We also determine the temperature dependence of the spin correlations, over more than three decades in temperature, by means of a finite temperature Chebyshev polynomial method introduced here. Finally, we report novel dynamical signatures of the quantum phase transitions in the K-I model. Our findings suggest that the efficiency, versatility and low-temperature stability of the Chebyshev framework developed here could pave the way for previously unattainable studies of quantum spin models in two dimensions.
We study the Kitaev-Heisenberg-$\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}$ model with antiferromagnetic Kitaev exchanges in the strong anisotropic (toric code) limit to understand the phases and the intervening phase transitions between the gapped Z2 quantum spin liquid and the spin-ordered (in the Heisenberg limit) as well as paramagnetic phases (in the pseudodipolar, $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}$, limit). We find that the paramagnetic phase obtained in the large $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}$ limit has no topological entanglement entropy and is proximate to a gapless critical point of a system described by equal superposition of differently oriented stacked one-dimensional ${Z}_{2}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{Z}_{2}$ symmetry protected topological phases. Using a combination of exact diagonalization calculations and field theoretic analysis we map out the phases and phase transitions to reveal the complete phase diagram as a function of the Heisenberg, the Kitaev, and the pseudodipolar interactions. Our work shows a rich plethora of unconventional phases and phase transitions and provides a comprehensive understanding of the physics of anisotropic Kitaev-Heisenberg-$\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}$ systems along with our recent paper [Phys. Rev. B 102, 235124 (2020)] where the ferromagnetic Kitaev exchange was studied.
By using the density matrix renormalization group(DMRG) method,the author investigates the diagram of the one-dimensional frustrated anisotropic ferromagnetic S=1 Heisenberg spin model,in which the nearest neighboring interactions are anisotropic ferromagnetic and the next nearest neighboring exchanges are considerable anti-ferromagnetic.The ground state energy and both the in-plane and out-of-plane spin correlation functions are calculated.Apart from the ferromagnetic phase and the spin-fluid phase in the small frustration region,but in the large frustration region,it is identified that spin correlations decay with a short-range exponential law and an oscillating behavior.The result is different from the previous result for S=1/2.
The Kitaev spin liquid, stabilized as the ground state of the Kitaev honeycomb model, is a paradigmatic example of a topological Z2 quantum spin liquid. The fate of the Kitaev spin liquid in presence of an external magnetic field is at present, a subject of intense scrutiny due to recent experimental signatures pointing to a Z2 topological phase in certain materials, as well as theoretical studies predicting the emergence of a quantum spin liquid phase of debated nature. In this work, we employ hierarchical mean-field theory, a method based on the use of clusters preserving relevant symmetries and short-range quantum correlations, to investigate the quantum phase diagram of the antiferromagnetic Kitaev's model in a [111] magnetic field. By using clusters of 24 sites, we predict that the Kitaev spin liquid transits through two intermediate phases, characterized by emerging stripe and chiral orders, respectively, before entering the trivial partially polarized phase, differing from previous studies. We assess our results by performing exact diagonalization and computing the scaling of different observables, including the many-body Chern number and other topological quantities, thus establishing hierarchical mean-field theory as a method to study models of frustrated quantum magnetism potentially hosting topological quantum spin liquids.