arXiv:1902.00466 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B
Ground state and low-energy excitations of the Kitaev-Heisenberg two-leg ladder
Cliò Efthimia Agrapidis, Jeroen van den Brink, Satoshi Nishimoto
Abstract
We study the ground state and low-lying excited states of the Kitaev-Heisenberg model on a two-leg ladder geometry using the density-matrix renormalization-group and Lanczos exact diagonalization methods. The Kitaev and Heisenberg interactions are parametrized as $K=sin\ensuremath{\phi}$ and $J=cos\ensuremath{\phi}$ with an angle parameter $\ensuremath{\phi}$. Based on the results for several types of order parameters, excitation gaps, string order parameter, and entanglement spectra, the $\ensuremath{\phi}$-dependent ground state phase diagram is determined. Remarkably, the phase diagram is quite similar to that of the Kitaev-Heisenberg model on a honeycomb lattice, exhibiting the same long-range-ordered states, namely rung singlet (analog to N\'eel in three dimensions), zigzag, ferromagnetic, and stripy, and the presence of gapped spin liquids around the exactly solvable Kitaev points $\ensuremath{\phi}=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ensuremath{\pi}/2$. We also calculate the expectation value of a plaquette operator corresponding to a $\ensuremath{\pi}$-flux state in order to establish how the gapped Kitaev spin liquid extends away from the $\ensuremath{\phi}=\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}\ensuremath{\pi}/2$. Furthermore, we determine the dynamical spin structure factor and discuss the effect of the Kitaev interaction on the spin-triplet dispersion.