Simulating strongly correlated systems with incommensurate order poses significant challenges for traditional finite-size-based approaches. Confining such a phase to a finite-size geometry can induce spurious frustration, with spin spirals in frustrated magnets being a typical example. Here, we introduce an Ansatz based on infinite projected entangled-pair states which overcomes these limitations and enables the direct search for the optimal spiral in the thermodynamic limit, with a computational cost that is independent of the spiral's wavelength. Leveraging this method, we simulate the Heisenberg model on the anisotropic triangular lattice, which interpolates between the square and isotropic triangular lattice limits. Besides accurately reproducing the magnetically ordered phases with arbitrary wavelength, the simulations reveal a quantum spin liquid phase emerging between the Néel and spin spiral phases.
The nature of the quantum spin liquid (QSL) phase in the frustrated
J1-
J2 Heisenberg model on the triangular lattice remains an open and actively debated problem. In this work, we employ the infinite projected entangled-pair state (PEPS) to systematically investigate the model under different symmetry constraints. Our simulations reveal a direct transition from the
120∘ Néel state to a putative QSL at
J2/J1≈0.08, signaled by the collapse of magnetic order. We further show that, through either an appropriate unitary rotation or spontaneous spin long-range order, the stripe antiferromagnetic phase can also be accurately captured within the infinite PEPS framework. A central focus of our study is the role played by the PEPS symmetry in approximating the QSL ground-state sandwiched between the two magnetic phases. We first found that a fully-symmetric topological
Z2 Resonating Valence Bond state, which can be written as a simple PEPS with bond dimension
D=3, exhibits a reasonably good variational energy. Motivated by this finding, we have further constructed generic
Z2-symmetric PEPS of larger bond dimension (up to
D=7). We found that, under wavefunction optimization, spinons condense and, simultaneously, topological vison excitations get confined, hence precluding
Z2 topological order. This strongly indicates the gapless (or critical) nature of the QSL phase, which is most naturally consistent with a U(1) Dirac spin liquid scenario.
We investigate the Hubbard model on the anisotropic triangular lattice with two hopping parameters
t and ${t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ in different spatial directions, interpolating between decoupled chains (
t=0) and the isotropic triangular lattice ($t={t}^{\ensuremath{'}}$). Variational wave functions that include both Jastrow and backflow terms are used to compare spin-liquid and magnetic phases with different pitch vectors describing both collinear and coplanar (spiral) order. For relatively large values of the on-site interaction $U/{t}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}10$ and substantial frustration, i.e., $0.3\ensuremath{\lesssim}t/{t}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{\lesssim}0.8$, the spin-liquid state is clearly favored over magnetic states. Spiral magnetic order is only stable in the vicinity of the isotropic point, while collinear order is obtained in a wide range of interchain hoppings from small to intermediate frustration.
The ground state of an
S=1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on a spatially anisotropic triangular lattice, which is an effective model of Mott insulators on a triangular layer of organic charge transfer salts or Cs
2CuCl
4, is numerically studied. We apply a numerical variational method by using a tensor network with entanglement renormalization, which improves the capability of describing a quantum state. Magnetic ground states are identified for $0.7\ensuremath{\le}{J}_{2}/{J}_{1}\ensuremath{\le}1$ in the thermodynamic limit, where
J1 and
J2 denote the innerchain and interchain coupling constants, respectively. Except for the isotropic case (
J1=J2), the magnetic structure is spiral with an incommensurate wave vector that is different from the classical one. The quantum fluctuation weakens the effective coupling between chains, but the magnetic order remains in the thermodynamic limit. In addition, the incommensurate wave number is in good agreement with that of the series expansion method.
We investigate a system of frustrated hardcore bosons, modeled by an XY antiferromagnet on the spatially anisotropic triangular lattice, using Takahashi's modified spin-wave (MSW) theory. In particular, we implement ordering vector optimization on the ordered reference state of MSW theory, which leads to significant improvement of the theory and accounts for quantum corrections to the classically ordered state. The MSW results at zero temperature compare favorably to exact diagonalization (ED) and projected entangled-pair state (PEPS) calculations. The resulting zero-temperature phase diagram includes a one-dimensional (1D) quasi-ordered phase, a 2D Néel ordered phase and a 2D spiraling ordered phase. Strong indications coming from the ED and PEPS calculations, as well as from the breakdown of MSW theory, suggest that the various ordered or quasi-ordered phases are separated by spin-liquid phases with short-range correlations, in analogy to what has been predicted for the Heisenberg model on the same lattice. Within MSW theory, we also explore the finite-temperature phase diagram. In agreement with the Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless (BKT) theory, we find that zero-temperature long-range-ordered phases turn into quasi-ordered phases (up to a BKT transition temperature), while zero-temperature quasi-ordered phases become short-range correlated at finite temperature. These results show that, despite its simplicity, MSW theory is very well suited to describing ordered and quasi-ordered phases of frustrated XY spins (or, equivalently, of frustrated lattice bosons) both at zero and finite temperatures. While MSW theory, just as other theoretical methods, cannot describe spin-liquid phases, its breakdown provides a fast and reliable method for singling out Hamiltonians that may feature these intriguing quantum phases. We thus suggest a tool for guiding our search for interesting systems whose properties are necessarily studied with a physical quantum simulator instead of theoretical methods.
The ferrimagnetic phase of the sawtooth chain with mixed ferromagnetic nearest-neighbour interactions J J and antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbour interactions J' J ′ (within the isotropic Heisenberg model) was previously characterized as a phase with commensurate order. In this paper, we demonstrate that the system in fact exhibits an incommensurate quantum spin spiral. Even though the ground state is translationally invariant in terms of the local spin expectations ‹\vec{S}_i› < S ⃗ i > , the spiral can be detected via the connected spin-spin correlations ‹{\vec{S}_i\cdot\vec{S}_j}› < S ⃗ i ⋅ S ⃗ j > - ‹{\vec{S}_i}›\cdot‹{\vec{S}_j}› < S ⃗ i > ⋅ < S ⃗ j > between the apical spins. It has a long wavelength that grows with J' J ′ and that soon exceeds finite-system sizes typically employed in numerical simulations. A faithful treatment thus requires the use of state-of-the-art simulations for large, periodic systems. In this work, we are able to accurately treat up to L=400 L = 400 sites (200 unit cells) with periodic boundary conditions using the density-matrix renormaliztion group (DMRG). Exploiting the SU(2) symmetry allows us to directly compute the lowest-energy state for a given total spin. Our results are corroborated by variational uniform matrix product state (VUMPS) calculations, which work directly in the thermodynamic limit at the cost of a lower accuracy.
The ferrimagnetic phase of the sawtooth chain with mixed ferromagnetic nearest-neighbour interactions
J and antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbour interactions
J′ (within the isotropic Heisenberg model) was previously characterized as a phase with commensurate order. In this paper, we demonstrate that the system in fact exhibits an incommensurate quantum spin spiral. Even though the ground state is translationally invariant in terms of the local spin expectations $\avg{\vec{S}_i}$, the spiral can be detected via the connected spin-spin correlations $\avg{\vec{S}_i\cdot\vec{S}_j}-\avg{\vec{S}_i}\cdot\avg{\vec{S}_j}$ between the apical spins. It has a long wavelength that grows with
J′ and that soon exceeds finite-system sizes typically employed in numerical simulations. A faithful treatment thus requires the use of state-of-the-art simulations for large, periodic systems. In this work, we are able to accurately treat up to
L=400 sites (200 unit cells) with periodic boundary conditions using the density-matrix renormaliztion group (DMRG). Exploiting the SU(2) symmetry allows us to directly compute the lowest-energy state for a given total spin. Our results are corroborated by variational uniform matrix product state (VUMPS) calculations, which work directly in the thermodynamic limit at the cost of a lower accuracy.