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arXiv:1805.02423 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Successive Majorana topological transitions driven by a magnetic field in the Kitaev model

Joji Nasu, Yasuyuki Kato, Yoshitomo Kamiya, Yukitoshi Motome

Published Aug 30, 2018• 72 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We study quantum phase transitions in the honeycomb Kitaev model under a magnetic field, focusing on the topological nature of Majorana fermion excitations. We find a gapless phase between the low-field gapless quantum spin liquid and the high-field gapped forced-ferromagnetic state for the antiferromagnetic Kitaev model in the [001] field by using the Majorana mean-field theory, in conjunction with the exact diagonalization and the spin-wave theory supporting the validity of this approach. The transition between the two gapless phases is driven by a topological change of the Majorana spectrum---line node formation interconnecting two Majorana cones. The peculiar change of the Majorana band topology is rationalized by a sign change of the effective Kitaev coupling by the magnetic field, which does not occur in the ferromagnetic Kitaev case. Upon tilting the magnetic field away from [001], the two gapless phases become gapped and topologically nontrivial, characterized by nonzero Chern numbers with different signs. The sign change of the Chern number leads to a reversal of the thermal edge current in the half-quantized thermal Hall effect.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.98.060416

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We study quantum phase transitions in the honeycomb Kitaev model under a magnetic field, focusing on the topological nature of Majorana fermion excitations. We find a gapless phase between the low-field gapless quantum spin liquid and the high-field gapped forced-ferromagnetic state for the antiferromagnetic Kitaev model in the [001] field by using the Majorana mean-field theory, in conjunction with the exact diagonalization and the spin-wave theory supporting the validity of this approach. The transition between the two gapless phases is driven by a topological change of the Majorana spectrum---line node formation interconnecting two Majorana cones. The peculiar change of the Majorana band topology is rationalized by a sign change of the effective Kitaev coupling by the magnetic field, which does not occur in the ferromagnetic Kitaev case. Upon tilting the magnetic field away from [001], the two gapless phases become gapped and topologically nontrivial, characterized by nonzero Chern numbers with different signs. The sign change of the Chern number leads to a reversal of the thermal edge current in the half-quantized thermal Hall effect.
We investigate the nature of the topological phase transition of the antiferromagnetic Kitaev model on a honeycomb lattice in the presence of a magnetic field along the [111] direction. The field opens a topological gap in the Majorana fermion spectrum and leads to a sequence of topological phase transitions before the field-polarized state is reached. At mean-field level, the gap first closes at the three M points in the Brillouin zone, where the Majorana fermions form Dirac cones, resulting in a change of Chern number by three. An odd number of Dirac fermions in infrared is unusual and requires Berry curvature compensation in ultraviolet, which occurs via topological, ringlike hybridization gaps with higher-energy bands. We perform a renormalization-group analysis of the topological phase transition at the three M points within the Yukawa theory, allowing for intravalley and intervalley fluctuations of the spin-liquid bond operators. We find that the latter lead to a breaking of Lorentz invariance and hence a different universality compared with the standard Ising Gross-Neveu-Yukawa class.
Magnetic fields can give rise to a plethora of phenomena in Kitaev spin systems, such as the formation of nontrivial spin liquids in two and three spatial dimensions. For the original honeycomb Kitaev model, it has recently been observed that the sign of the bond-directional exchange is of crucial relevance for the field-induced physics, with antiferromagnetic couplings giving rise to an intermediate spin liquid regime between the low-field gapped Kitaev spin liquid and the high-field polarized state, which is not present in the ferromagnetically coupled model. Here, by employing a Majorana mean-field approach for a magnetic field pointing along the [001] direction, we present a systematic study of field-induced spin liquid phases for a variety of two and three-dimensional lattice geometries. We find that antiferromagnetic couplings generically lead to (i) spin liquid phases that are considerably more stable in field than those for ferromagnetic couplings, and (ii) an intermediate spin liquid phase which arises from a change in the topology of the Majorana band structure. Close inspection of the mean-field parameters reveal that the intermediate phase occurs due to a field-driven sign change in an `effective' zzz-bond energy parameter. Our results clearly demonstrate the richness of the Majorana physics of the antiferromagnetic Kitaev models, in comparison to their ferromagnetic counterparts.
We investigate the nature of the topological quantum phase transition between the gapless and gapped Kitaev quantum spin liquid phases away from the exactly solvable point. The transition is driven by anisotropy of the Kitaev couplings. At the critical point, the two Dirac points of the gapless Majorana modes merge, resulting in the formation of a semi-Dirac point with quadratic and linear band touching directions. We derive an effective Gross-Neveu-Yukawa-type field theory that describes the topological phase transition in the presence of additional magnetic interactions. We obtain the infrared scaling form of the propagator of the dynamical Ising order parameter field and perform a renormalization-group analysis. The universality of the transition is found to be different from that of symmetry-breaking phase transitions of semi-Dirac electrons. However, as in the electronic case, the Majorana fermions acquire an anomalous dimension, indicative of the breakdown of the fractionalized quasiparticle description.
We investigate the phase diagram of a bilayer Kitaev honeycomb model with Ising interlayer interactions, deriving effective models via perturbation theory and performing Majorana mean-field theory calculations. We show that a diverse array of magnetic and topological phase transitions occur, depending on the direction of the interlayer Ising interaction and the relative sign of Kitaev interactions. When two layers have the same sign of the Kitaev interaction, a first-order transition from a Kitaev spin liquid to a magnetically ordered state takes place. The magnetic order points along the Ising axis and it is (anti)ferromagnetic for (anti)ferromagnetic Kitaev interactions. However, when two layers have opposite signs of the Kitaev interaction, we observe a notable weakening of magnetic ordering tendencies and the Kitaev spin liquid survives up to a remarkably larger interlayer exchange. Our mean-field analysis suggests the emergence of an intermediate gapped Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ spin-liquid state, which eventually becomes unstable upon vison condensation. The confined phase is described by a highly frustrated ${120}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$ compass model. We furthermore use perturbation theory to study the model with the Ising axis pointing along the $\stackrel{\ifmmode \hat{}\else \^{}\fi{}}{z}$ axis or lying in the xyxyxy plane. In both cases, our analysis reveals the formation of one-dimensional Ising chains, which remain decoupled in perturbation theory, resulting in a subextensive ground-state degeneracy. Our results highlight the interplay between topological order and magnetic ordering tendencies in bilayer quantum spin liquids.
A quantum spin liquid is a magnetic phase of matter that is remarkable for its ground state long-range entanglement and fractional excitations. A quantum spin liquid appears in the well-known Kitaev honeycomb spin-half model. In a magnetic field, there is a phase transition to a topological phase with an energy gap in the bulk and chiral Majorana fermions at the edge. However, recent nuclear magnetic resonance experiments suggest excitations without a gap in this phase, signalled by the cubic temperature dependence of the spin-lattice relaxation rate at low temperatures. In this work, I propose a mechanism to account for this experimental result. I use the localization of chiral Majorana modes in defects to explain the presence of gapless modes in the bulk. Treating the weak interaction between the chiral modes in the defects within a mean-field approximation, I find that these modes remain gapless when the interaction is below a critical value that depends on the magnetic field strength. I used the effective low-energy theory to calculate the spin-lattice relaxation rate and found a behavior that agrees with the experimental result.
We unveil an interesting example of topological flat bands of Majorana fermions in quantum spin liquids. We study the Kitaev model on a periodically depleted honeycomb lattice, under a magnetic field within the perturbation theory. The model can be straightforwardly extended while maintaining the exact solvability, and its ground state is a quantum spin liquid as on the honeycomb lattice. As fractionalized excitations, there are unpaired localized Majorana fermions in addition to the itinerant Majorana fermions and Z2{\mathbb{Z}}_{2}Z2​ fluxes. We show that, in the absence of the magnetic field, the Majorana fermions exhibit completely flat bands at zero energy, and by applying the magnetic field, these bands turn into topological flat bands with nonzero Chern number. By varying the anisotropy of the interactions and the magnitude of the magnetic field, we clarify that the system hosts a variety of topological phases that do not appear in the original honeycomb model. We emphasize that the topological flat bands underlying this rich topology come from the hybridization of the Majorana flat bands and unpaired Majorana fermions, which is unique to the flat bands of fractionalized excitations in quantum spin liquids. Our findings would stimulate the exploration of a new class of Kitaev materials exhibiting rich topology arising from topological Majorana flat bands.