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arXiv:1705.05381 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Emergence of chiral spin liquids via quantum melting of noncoplanar magnetic orders

Ciarán Hickey, Łukasz Cincio, Zlatko Papić, Arun Paramekanti

Published Sep 11, 2017• 46 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are highly entangled states of quantum magnets which lie beyond the Landau paradigm of classifying phases of matter via broken symmetries. A physical route to arriving at QSLs is via frustration-induced quantum melting of ordered states such as valence bond crystals or magnetic orders. Here we show, using extensive exact diagonalization (ED) and density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) studies of concrete $SU(2)$ invariant spin models on honeycomb, triangular, and square lattices, that chiral spin liquids (CSLs) emerge as descendants of triple-$Q$ spin crystals with tetrahedral magnetic order and a large scalar spin chirality. Such ordered-to-CSL melting transitions may yield lattice realizations of effective Chern-Simons-Higgs field theories. Our work provides a distinct unifying perspective on the emergence of CSLs and suggests that materials with certain noncoplanar magnetic orders might provide a good starting point to search for CSLs.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.96.115115

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Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are highly entangled states of quantum magnets which lie beyond the Landau paradigm of classifying phases of matter via broken symmetries. A physical route to arriving at QSLs is via frustration-induced quantum melting of ordered states such as valence bond crystals or magnetic orders. Here we show, using extensive exact diagonalization (ED) and density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) studies of concrete SU(2)SU(2)SU(2) invariant spin models on honeycomb, triangular, and square lattices, that chiral spin liquids (CSLs) emerge as descendants of triple-QQQ spin crystals with tetrahedral magnetic order and a large scalar spin chirality. Such ordered-to-CSL melting transitions may yield lattice realizations of effective Chern-Simons-Higgs field theories. Our work provides a distinct unifying perspective on the emergence of CSLs and suggests that materials with certain noncoplanar magnetic orders might provide a good starting point to search for CSLs.
Frustrated magnetism provides a rich platform for realizing exotic quantum phases in condensed matter systems. Among these, quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are a particularly intriguing class of states that exhibit no magnetic ordering and preserve all symmetries down to zero temperature. Just as conventional magnets can be thought of as spin crystals,QSLs represent their liquid analogs. This thesis explores two broad types of QSLs in two-dimensional magnets, with a focus on their dynamic properties and the nature of transitions from conventional magnetic states into QSL phases. QSLs are topological phases that host fractionalized excitations known as spinons. In these states, mobile spinons are coupled to an emergent gauge field, forming a highly entangled phase of matter. The first part of this thesis focuses on Dirac spin liquids (DSLs), a class of QSLs where spinons exhibit a gapless Dirac dispersion. To study the dynamicsof these spin liquids beyond leading-order mean-field theory, we develop a novel large-N fermionic limit of gapless spinons. In this limit, all gauge excitations are suppressed, and the leading-order corrections instead arise from order parameter fluctuations, which may condense and drive transitions into symmetry-broken phases from the parent DSL. Incorporating random phase approximation (RPA) corrections to the spin susceptibility, we find that sharp, spin-wave–like modes are recovered in the excitation spectrum. This methodology successfully captures characteristic features of the dynamics near phase transitions and in weakly symmetry-broken phases proximate to a DSL. We apply this approach to microscopic models, including the J1-J2 XXZ model on the triangular lattice and the J1-J3 XXZ model on the honeycomb lattice. These models closely represent a wide range of frustrated materials, such as triangular and honeycomb cobaltates and triangular ytterbium compounds. Our theoretical predictions show excellent agreement with experimentally measured inelastic neutron scattering spectra from these materials. Gapless spinons can also sometimes become gapped through chiral symmetry breaking, leading to the formation of a chiral spin liquid (CSL). The CSL is an archetypal bosonic realization of a fractional quantum Hall (FQH) state at half-filling, and has been proposed as a time-reversal–breaking ground state in a variety of frustrated spin models. The second part of this thesis addresses the intriguing possibility of realizing a CSL through the "melting" of a chiral spin crystal—a conventional magnet with non-coplanar ordering. Such a transition offers a physically appealing analogue to the melting of a Wigner crystal into a fermionic FQH liquid. Focusing on the kagome lattice, where chiral interactions are knownto stabilize a CSL ground state, we study the effects of additional long-range Heisenberg interactions and demonstrate a phase transition into a non-coplanar octahedral magnetic order. To describe the universal class of transition between a CSL and a non-coplanar anti-ferromagnetic order, we then develop a novel Chern-Simons–matter field theory framework, constrained by symmetry principles and symmetry fractionalization patterns. This thesis thus provides new insights into the dynamical signatures and phase transitions of quantum spin liquids, offering a bridge between theoretical models and experimental observations in frustrated magnetic systems.
Motivated by cold atom experiments on Chern insulators, we study the honeycomb lattice Haldane-Hubbard Mott insulator of spin-1/2 fermions using exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group methods. We show that this model exhibits various chiral magnetic orders including a wide regime of triple-Q tetrahedral order. Incorporating third-neighbor hopping frustrates and ultimately melts this tetrahedral spin crystal. From analyzing the low energy spectrum, many-body Chern numbers, entanglement spectra, and modular matrices, we identify the molten state as a chiral spin liquid (CSL) with gapped semion excitations. We formulate and study the Chern-Simons-Higgs field theory of the exotic CSL-to-tetrahedral spin crystallization transition.
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The breaking of chiral and time-reversal symmetries provides a pathway to exotic quantum phenomena and topological phases. Recent work has extensively explored the resulting emergence of chiral charge orders and chiral spin liquids (CSLs) on the kagome lattice. Such CSLs are closely tied to bosonic fractional quantum Hall states with anyonic quasiparticles; however, their connection to nearby ordered states has remained a mystery. Here, we use spin-wave theory, parton Gutzwiller wave functions, and exact diagonalization to show that two distinct magnetic orders with uniform scalar chirality---the XYZ umbrella state and the octahedral spin crystal--emerge as competing orders in close proximity to the CSL. In this letter, we highlight the intimate link between a topologically ordered liquid and broken symmetry states with nontrivial real-space topology.
We study the spin-1/21/21/2 Heisenberg model on the triangular lattice with the nearest-neighbor J1>0{J}_{1}>0J1​>0, the next-nearest-neighobr J2>0{J}_{2}>0J2​>0 Heisenberg interactions, and the additional scalar chiral interaction ${J}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}({\stackrel{P\vec}{S}}_{i}\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{\stackrel{P\vec}{S}}_{j})\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}{\stackrel{P\vec}{S}}_{k}$ for the three spins in all the triangles using large-scale density matrix renormalization group calculation on cylinder geometry. With increasing J2{J}_{2}J2​ (${J}_{2}/{J}_{1}\ensuremath{\le}0.3$) and ${J}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}$ (${J}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}/{J}_{1}\ensuremath{\le}1.0$) interactions, we establish a quantum phase diagram with the magnetically ordered ${120}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$, stripe, and noncoplanar tetrahedral phase. In between these magnetic order phases, we find a chiral spin liquid (CSL) phase, which is identified as a $\ensuremath{\nu}=1/2$ bosonic fractional quantum Hall state with possible spontaneous rotational symmetry breaking. By switching on the chiral interaction, we find that the previously identified spin liquid in the ${J}_{1}\ensuremath{-}{J}_{2}$ triangular model ($0.08\ensuremath{\lesssim}{J}_{2}/{J}_{1}\ensuremath{\lesssim}0.15$) shows a phase transition to the CSL phase at very small ${J}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}$. We also compute the spin triplet gap in both spin liquid phases, and our finite-size results suggest a large gap in the odd topological sector but a small or vanishing gap in the even sector. We discuss the implications of our results on the nature of the spin liquid phases.
Non-Abelian chiral spin liquids (CSLs) host non-Abelian anyon excitations and are promising platforms for topological quantum computation. However, realizing non-Abelian CSLs in short-range interacting spin systems remains elusive. Here, we study a spin-111 square-lattice model with the first- and second-neighbor bilinear (J1,J2J_1,J_2J1​,J2​) and biquadratic interactions (K1,K2K_1,K_2K1​,K2​), as well as the three-spin scalar chiral coupling JχJ_χJχ​. Inspired by the evidence of the Moore-Read state in exact diagonalization and infinite Projected Entangled Pair States calculations, we fix J1=1.0J_1=1.0J1​=1.0, J2/J1=0.623J_2/J_1=0.623J2​/J1​=0.623, K1/J1=−0.176K_1/J_1=-0.176K1​/J1​=−0.176, and obtain a quantum phase diagram for 0≤K2/J1≤0.40 \leq K_2/J_1 \leq 0.40≤K2​/J1​≤0.4 and 0.3≤Jχ/J1≤0.60.3 \leq J_χ/J_1 \leq 0.60.3≤Jχ​/J1​≤0.6 by using the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculations. We identify a stripe antiferromagnetic phase, a Néel antiferromagnetic phase, a magnetically ordered chiral spin state phase, and a non-Abelian CSL phase emerging near the boundaries of the ordered phases. The unbiased DMRG results provide strong evidence for the Moore-Read state, including the three topological sectors, the quantized spin Chern number C=1C=1C=1, and the level counting of low-lying entanglement spectra which is consistent with the chiral SU(2)2_22​ conformal field theory. Our results may shed new light on searching for non-Abelian CSLs in other higher-spin (S>1/2S > 1/2S>1/2) systems with short-range couplings.