In quantum magnetism, peculiar features of quantum spin system sometimes forbid the existence of gapped ``featureless'' paramagnets which are fully symmetric and unfractionalized. The celebrated Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem is an example of such a constraint, but it is not known what the most general restriction might be. For given lattice structure and symmetries, it is an interesting question whether a featureless paramagnetic phase exists. In this paper, the authors focus on the existence of such featureless paramagnets on the square and honeycomb lattices and, on the basis of analytical and numerical arguments, propose the corresponding wave functions for several such models. The existence of these nontrivial states not only offers a proof of principle, but also suggests an exotic field theory description when these states are brought to the vicinity of a second-order phase transition.
Motivated by the proposal of a topological quantum paramagnet in the diamond lattice antiferromagnet
NiRh2O4, we propose a minimal model to describe the magnetic interaction and properties of the diamond material with spin-one local moments. Our model includes the first- and second-neighbor Heisenberg interactions as well as a local single-ion spin anisotropy that is allowed by the spin-one nature of the local moment and the tetragonal symmetry of the system. We point out that there exists a quantum phase transition from a trivial quantum paramagnet when single-ion spin anisotropy is dominant to the magnetic ordered states when the exchange is dominant. Due to the frustrated spin interaction, the magnetic excitation in the quantum paramagnetic state supports extensively degenerate band minima in the spectra. As the system approaches the transition, extensively degenerate bosonic modes become critical at the criticality, giving rise to unusual magnetic properties. Our phase diagram and experimental predictions for different phases provide a guideline for the identification of the ground state for
NiRh2O4. Although our results are fundamentally different from the proposal for topological quantum paramagnets, they represent interesting possibilities for spin-one diamond lattice antiferromagnets.
The spin-
1/2 quantum Heisenberg model on the diamond-decorated honeycomb lattice in a magnetic field is investigated using complementary analytical and numerical methods. The ground-state phase diagram comprises Lieb-Mattis ferrimagnetic, dimer-tetramer, monomer-dimer, spin-canted, and saturated paramagnetic phases, giving rise to characteristic magnetization plateaus, continuous and discontinuous field-induced transitions. In the highly frustrated regime, a localized-magnon approach based on an effective classical lattice-gas model provides an accurate description of the low-temperature magnetism and thermodynamics in agreement with numerical results. At intermediate frustration, finite-temperature calculations reveal characteristic specific-heat signatures of the field-induced transitions including the development of Ising critical behavior at the field-induced transition between the monomer-dimer and Lieb-Mattis ferrimagnetic phase.
We use the coupled-cluster method in high orders of approximation to make a comprehensive study of the ground-state (GS) phase diagram of the spin-1/2
J1-
J2-
J3 model on a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice with antiferromagnetic (AFM) interactions up to third-nearest neighbors. Results are presented for the GS energy and the average local onsite magnetization. With the nearest-neighbor coupling strength ${J}_{1}\ensuremath{\equiv}1$, we find four magnetically ordered phases in the parameter window ${J}_{2},{J}_{3}\ensuremath{\in}[0,1]$, namely, the N\'eel, striped, and N\'eel-II collinear AFM phases, plus a spiral phase. The N\'eel-II phase appears as a stable GS phase in the classical version of the model only for values
J3<0. Each of these four ordered phases shares a boundary with a disordered quantum paramagnetic (QP) phase, and at several widely separated points on the phase boundaries the QP phase has an infinite susceptibility to plaquette valence-bond crystalline order. We identify all of the phase boundaries with good precision in the parameter window studied, and we find three tricritical quantum critical points therein at (a) $({J}_{2}^{{c}_{1}},{J}_{3}^{{c}_{1}})=(0.51\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.01,0.69\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.01)$ between the N\'eel, striped, and QP phases; (b) $({J}_{2}^{{c}_{2}},{J}_{3}^{{c}_{2}})=(0.65\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.02,0.55\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.01)$ between the striped, spiral, and QP phases; and (c) $({J}_{2}^{{c}_{3}},{J}_{3}^{{c}_{3}})=(0.69\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.01,0.12\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.01)$ between the spiral, N\'eel-II, and QP phases.
We study the ground-state (gs) phase diagram of the frustrated spin-
21 J1--
J2--
J3 antiferromagnet with ${J}_{2}={J}_{3}=\ensuremath{\kappa}{J}_{1}$ on the honeycomb lattice using coupled-cluster theory and exact diagonalization methods. We present results for the gs energy, magnetic order parameter, spin-spin correlation function, and plaquette valence-bond crystal (PVBC) susceptibility. We find a N\'eel antiferromagnetic (AFM) phase for $\ensuremath{\kappa}<{\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{{c}_{1}}\ensuremath{\approx}0.47$, a collinear striped AFM phase for $\ensuremath{\kappa}>{\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{{c}_{2}}\ensuremath{\approx}0.60$, and a paramagnetic PVBC phase for ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{{c}_{1}}\ensuremath{\lesssim}\ensuremath{\kappa}\ensuremath{\lesssim}{\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{{c}_{2}}$. The transition at ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{{c}_{2}}$ appears to be of first-order type, while that at ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{{c}_{1}}$ is continuous. Since the N\'eel and PVBC phases break different symmetries our results favor the deconfinement scenario for the transition at ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{{c}_{1}}$.
We study the spin-1/2 Ising-XXZ model on a decorated honeycomb lattice composed of five spins per unit cell, one Ising spin, and four Heisenberg spins. This model involving the Heisenberg exchange interaction is one of the few models that can be exactly solvable through the generalized star-triangle transformation. The significance of this model is its close relationship to the fully decorated quantum Heisenberg honeycomb lattice since 4/5 of the particles are Heisenberg spins. We investigate the phase diagram at zero temperature and identify a relevant quantum spin frustrated phase resulting from the contribution of quantum Heisenberg exchange interaction. We obtain an exact residual entropy for the quantum spin frustrated phase, which coincides with the residual entropy of the antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 Ising model on a triangular lattice. We also thoroughly explore its thermodynamic properties, focusing mainly on the frustrated region such as entropy, specific heat, spontaneous magnetization, and critical temperature under several conditions.