We study the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a bilayer honeycomb lattice including interlayer frustration. Using a set of complementary approaches, namely, Schwinger bosons, dimer series expansion, bond operators, and exact diagonalization, we map out the quantum phase diagram. Analyzing ground-state energies and elementary excitation spectra, we find four distinct phases, corresponding to three collinear magnetic long-range ordered states, and one quantum disordered interlayer dimer phase. We detail that the latter phase is adiabatically connected to an exact singlet product ground state of the bilayer, which exists along a line of maximum interlayer frustration. The order within the remaining three phases will be clarified.
We use a combination of analytical and numerical techniques to study the phase diagram of the frustrated Heisenberg model on the bilayer honeycomb lattice. Using the Schwinger-boson description of the spin operators followed by a mean-field decoupling, the magnetic phase diagram is studied as a function of the frustration coupling
J2 and the interlayer coupling ${J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}$. The presence of both magnetically ordered and disordered phases is investigated by means of the evaluation of ground-state energy, spin gap, local magnetization, and spin-spin correlations. We observe a phase with a spin gap and short-range N\'eel correlations that survives for nonzero next-nearest-neighbor interaction and interlayer coupling. Furthermore, we detect signatures of a reentrant behavior in the melting of the N\'eel phase and symmetry restoring when the system undergoes a transition from an on-layer nematic valence-bond crystal phase to an interlayer valence-bond crystal phase. We complement our work with exact diagonalization on small clusters and dimer-series expansion calculations, together with a linear spin-wave approach to study the phase diagram as a function of the spin
S, the frustration, and the interlayer couplings.
We study the frustrated Heisenberg model on the bilayer honeycomb lattice. The ground-state energy and spin gap are calculated, using different bosonic representations at mean field level and numerical calculations, to explore different sectors of the phase diagram. In particular we make use of a bond operator formalism and series expansion calculations to study the extent of dimer inter-layer phase. On the other hand we use the Schwinger boson method and exact diagonalization on small systems to analyze the evolution of on-layer phases. In this case we specifically observe a phase that presents a spin gap and short range Neel correlations that survives even in the presence of non-zero next-nearest-neighbor interaction and inter-layer coupling.
The zero-temperature quantum phase diagram of the spin-
21 J1--
J2--
J1⊥ model on an
AA-stacked bilayer honeycomb lattice is investigated using the coupled cluster method (CCM). The model comprises two monolayers in each of which the spins, residing on honeycomb-lattice sites, interact via both nearest-neighbor (NN) and frustrating next-nearest-neighbor isotropic antiferromagnetic (AFM) Heisenberg exchange iteractions, with respective strengths
J1>0 and
J2≡κJ1>0. The two layers are coupled via a comparable Heisenberg exchange interaction between NN interlayer pairs, with a strength
J1⊥≡δJ1. The complete phase boundaries of two quasiclassical collinear AFM phases, namely the Neel and Neel-II phases, are calculated in the
κδ half-plane with
κ>0. Whereas on each monolayer in the Neel state all NN pairs of spins are antiparallel, in the Neel-II state NN pairs of spins on zigzag chains along one of the three equivalent honeycomb-lattice directions are antiparallel, while NN interchain spins are parallel. We calculate directly in the thermodynamic (infinite-lattice) limit both the magnetic order parameter
M and the excitation energy
Δ from the
sTz=0 ground state to the lowest-lying
∣sTz∣=1 excited state (where
sTz is the total
z component of spin for the system as a whole, and where the collinear ordering lies along the
z direction) for both quasiclassical states used (separately) as the CCM model state, on top of which the multispin quantum correlations are then calculated to high orders (
n≤10) in a systematic series of approximations involving
n-spin clusters. The sole approximation made is then to extrapolate the sequences of
nth-order results for
M and
Δ to the exact limit,
n→∞.
We study the ground-state phase diagram of the spin-
1/2 Kitaev-Heisenberg model on the bilayer honeycomb lattice with large-scale tensor network calculations based on the infinite projected entangled pair state technique as well as high-order series expansions. We find that beyond various magnetically ordered phases, including ferromagnetic, zigzag, antiferromagnetic (AFM) and stripy states, two extended quantum spin liquid phases arise in the proximity of the Kitaev limit. While these ordered phases also appear in the monolayer Kitaev-Heisenberg model, our results further show that a valence bond solid state emerges in a relatively narrow range of parameter space between the AFM and stripy phases, which can be adiabatically connected to isolated Heisenberg dimers. Our results highlight the importance of considering interlayer interactions on the emergence of novel quantum phases in the bilayer Kitaev materials.
We study a bilayer of the frustrated ${J}_{1}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{2}$ Heisenberg model on the square lattice. Starting from the dimer limit at strong interlayer coupling, we perform series expansions using the perturbative continuous unitary transformation, based on the flow equation method, in order to determine the spectrum up to the two-triplon sector. From the one-triplon dispersion, we obtain quantum critical lines for transitions from the dimer phase into either N\'eel or collinear magnetic order. For low to intermediate frustration these transitions are consistent with existing findings, based on the magnetic phases. In the region of strongest frustration, i.e., ${J}_{2}/{J}_{1}\ensuremath{\sim}0.5$, we provide an estimate for the stability of the anticipated single-layer quantum spin-liquids against finite interlayer coupling. In the two-triplon sector, we find a set of well defined (anti)bound states, which can be classified according to total spin and in-plane rotational symmetry. For vanishing frustration, these states agree with the previous series expansion analysis. For ${J}_{2}/{J}_{1}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}0.5$, we provide evidence for a close-by condensation of one-triplon and two-triplon singlet bound states, suggesting that between the dimer and the collinear state additional phases may intervene.
We study a bilayer of the frustrated
J1-
J2 Heisenberg-model on the square lattice. Starting from the dimer limit at strong interlayer coupling, we perform series expansions using the perturbative Continuous Unitary Transformation, based on the flow equation method, in order to determine the spectrum up to the two-triplon sector. From the one-triplon dispersion we obtain quantum critical lines for transitions from the dimer phase into either Néel or collinear magnetic order. For low to intermediate frustration these transitions are consistent with existing findings, based on the magnetic phases. In the region of strongest frustration, i.e.
J2/J1∼0.5, we provide an estimate for the stability of the anticipated single-layer quantum spin-liquids against finite interlayer coupling. In the two-triplon sector we find a set of well defined (anti)bound states, which can be classified according to total spin and in-plane rotational symmetry. For vanishing frustration these states agree with previous series expansion analysis. For
J2/J1≳0.5 we provide evidence for a close-by condensation of one-triplon and two-triplon singlet bound states, suggesting that between the dimer and the collinear state, additional phases may intervene.