Highly entangled excitations such as Majorana fermions of Kitaev quantum spin liquids have been proposed to be utilized for future quantum science and technology, and a deeper understanding of such excitations has been strongly desired. Here we demonstrate that Majorana fermion's mass and associated topological quantum phase transitions in the Kitaev quantum spin liquids may be manipulated by using electric fields in sharp contrast to the common belief that an insulator is inert under weak electric fields due to charge energy gaps. Using general symmetry analysis with perturbation and exact diagonalization, we uncover the universal phase diagrams with electric and magnetic fields. We also provide distinctive experimental signatures to identify Kitaev quantum spin liquids with electric fields, especially in connection with the candidate materials such as $\ensuremath{\alpha}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathrm{RuCl}}_{3}$.
Highly entangled excitations such as Majorana fermions of Kitaev quantum spin liquids have been proposed to be utilized for future quantum science and technology, and a deeper understanding of such excitations has been strongly desired. Here we demonstrate that Majorana fermion's mass and associated topological quantum phase transitions in the Kitaev quantum spin liquids may be manipulated by using electric fields in sharp contrast to the common belief that an insulator is inert under weak electric fields due to charge energy gaps. Using general symmetry analysis with perturbation and exact diagonalization, we uncover the universal phase diagrams with electric and magnetic fields. We also provide distinctive experimental signatures to identify Kitaev quantum spin liquids with electric fields, especially in connection with the candidate materials such as \ensuremathα\ensuremath-RuCl3.
Quantum spin liquids realize massive entanglement and fractional quasiparticles from localized spins, proposed as an avenue for quantum science and technology. In particular, topological quantum computations are suggested in the non-abelian phase of Kitaev quantum spin liquid with Majorana fermions, and detection of Majorana fermions is one of the most outstanding problems in modern condensed matter physics. Here, we propose a concrete way to identify the non-abelian Kitaev quantum spin liquid by magnetic field angle dependence. Topologically protected critical lines exist on a plane of magnetic field angles, and their shapes are determined by microscopic spin interactions. A chirality operator plays a key role in demonstrating microscopic dependences of the critical lines. We also show that the chirality operator can be used to evaluate topological properties of the non-abelian Kitaev quantum spin liquid without relying on Majorana fermion descriptions. Experimental criteria for the non-abelian spin liquid state are provided for future experiments.
The Kitaev honeycomb model realizes a quantum spin liquid where spin degrees of freedom are fractionalized into itinerant Majorana fermions and localized vortices. The entanglement among these particles holds promise for executing fault-tolerant topological quantum computation. While several materials have been proposed to host a quantum spin liquid phase, concrete evidence confirming its existence remains elusive. To aid in identifying this phase, we propose an electrical test using the charge profile, offering a signature for the Z2 vortices in Kitaev materials. This study explores the electric charge response in Kitaev materials, considering a generalized spin model including Heisenberg, off-diagonal exchange interactions, and magnetic Zeeman field. Majorana mean-field theory is employed to analyze spin correlations around vortices, revealing spatial anisotropy in the charge distribution, quantified by the electric quadrupole moment. This mean-field approach remains exact in the pure Kitaev limit and captures the fundamental physics across the Kitaev spin liquid phase. The quadrupole-quadrupole interaction between distant vortices is shown to be either repulsive or attractive, depending on the parameters. We predict that electrically biased scanning probe tips can help create vortices at predetermined locations. The findings of our study pave the way for electrically manipulating Ising anyons in Kitaev spin liquids, offering a promising path for technological applications of Kitaev materials.
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 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.
A Majorana fermion is a fermionic particle that is its own antiparticle. Since the theoretical discovery in 1937, the exotic particle has long been searched in particle physics. In the last few decades, however, it has attracted renewed interest in condensed matter physics, where it can be realized as an elementary excitation (quasiparticle) in quantum states of matter. In this review, we discuss another platform for Majorana fermions, the quantum spin liquid, in which interacting magnetic moments remain disordered down to the lowest temperature under strong quantum fluctuations. They are characterized by topological entanglement and fractional excitations, whose possible application to topological quantum computation is recently discussed intensively. As a prime candidate for such exotic states, we here focus on the Kitaev magnets, a subgroup of the spin-orbit Mott insulators. After a brief overview of the Kitaev model and the fractionalization of spins in the exact ground state, we review recent explosive development in this rapidly growing field, with a focus on numerical solutions of the Kitaev model at finite temperatures and the comparison with experiments. The key concept is thermal fractionalization --- two types of fractional excitations manifest themselves at largely different temperatures. This leads to distinct thermodynamics and spin dynamics in a variety of experimentally measurable quantities. We discuss such peculiar behaviors as the signatures of fractional quasiparticles, in careful comparison with the available experimental data for the candidate materials of the Kitaev magnets. Our review gives an overview of the current status of the identification of Majorana fermions in the Kitaev magnets, which would serve as a basis for further experimental and theoretical studies toward the manipulation of the exotic particles for topological quantum computation.
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.