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arXiv:2412.20889 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Phase transition of Kitaev spin liquid described by quantum geometric tensor

M A Çipilo lu, Zheng-Chuan Wang

Published May 21, 2025• 0 citations
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Abstract

We investigate the topological phase transition of Kitaev spin liquid in an external magnetic field by calculating the Berry curvature and the Fubini-Study metric. Employing Jordan-Wigner transformation and effective perturbative theory to transform the Hamiltonian into fermionic quadratic form, the Berry curvature is calculated by choosing the effective magnetic field as the parameter, and we find that the $xy$ component of the Berry curvature has the same behavior around the critical lines with the phase diagram. Especially, we relate the Berry curvature with the derivative of effective magnetic susceptibility which can be regarded as the signature of topological phase transition. Moreover, we related the second nonlinear susceptibility with the interband Berry connection. Then we analytically calculate the generalized Berry curvature in the mixed state called the mean Uhlmann curvature, which can be related with the spectral function. The curves where the Uhlmann curvature changes temperature with different coupling constants reveal that it will have a peak at $T=0.2K$ when adjusting ${J}_{x}$ from 0.2 to 0.3 with ${J}_{y}=0.25$, in which the first-order derivative is discontinuous, revealing the characteristic of thermodynamic phase transition from the $B$ phase quantum spin liquid state to the magnetic ordered state. Last, we analytically calculate the quantum geometric tensor in the effective magnetic-field space whose imaginary part is the Berry curvature and the real part is the Fubini-Study metric, and we find that the $zz$ component of the Fubini-Study metric and the phase diagram are highly correlated, which will peak at the cross point of three phases, and then the Fubini-Study metric is extended to the finite temperature, called the Bures metric, which has the same behavior of the Uhlmann curvature at $T=0.2K$ in $B$ phase.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.111.184428

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We investigate the topological phase transition of Kitaev spin liquid in an external magnetic field by calculating the Berry curvature and the Fubini-Study metric. Employing Jordan-Wigner transformation and effective perturbative theory to transform the Hamiltonian into fermionic quadratic form, the Berry curvature is calculated by choosing the effective magnetic field as the parameter, and we find that the xyxyxy component of the Berry curvature has the same behavior around the critical lines with the phase diagram. Especially, we relate the Berry curvature with the derivative of effective magnetic susceptibility which can be regarded as the signature of topological phase transition. Moreover, we related the second nonlinear susceptibility with the interband Berry connection. Then we analytically calculate the generalized Berry curvature in the mixed state called the mean Uhlmann curvature, which can be related with the spectral function. The curves where the Uhlmann curvature changes temperature with different coupling constants reveal that it will have a peak at T=0.2KT=0.2KT=0.2K when adjusting Jx{J}_{x}Jx​ from 0.2 to 0.3 with Jy=0.25{J}_{y}=0.25Jy​=0.25, in which the first-order derivative is discontinuous, revealing the characteristic of thermodynamic phase transition from the BBB phase quantum spin liquid state to the magnetic ordered state. Last, we analytically calculate the quantum geometric tensor in the effective magnetic-field space whose imaginary part is the Berry curvature and the real part is the Fubini-Study metric, and we find that the zzzzzz component of the Fubini-Study metric and the phase diagram are highly correlated, which will peak at the cross point of three phases, and then the Fubini-Study metric is extended to the finite temperature, called the Bures metric, which has the same behavior of the Uhlmann curvature at T=0.2KT=0.2KT=0.2K in BBB phase.
We study finite-temperature topological properties of the Kitaev's spin-honeycomb model in the vortex-free sector with the use of the recently introduced mean Uhlmann curvature. We employ an appropriate fermionization procedure to study the system as a two-band ppp-wave superconductor described by a Bogoliubov--de Gennes Hamiltonian. This allows us to study relevant quantities such as Berry and mean Uhlmann curvatures in a simple setting. More specifically, we consider the spin honeycomb in the presence of an external magnetic field breaking time-reversal symmetry. The introduction of such an external perturbation opens up a gap in the phase of the system characterized by non-Abelian statistics. The resulting model belongs to a symmetry-protected class, so that the Uhlmann number can be analyzed. We first consider the Berry curvature on a particular evolution line over the phase diagram. The mean Uhlmann curvature and the Uhlmann number are then analyzed by assuming a thermal state. The mean Uhlmann curvature describes a crossover effect as temperature rises. In the trivial phase, a nonmonotonic dependence of the Uhlmann number, as temperature increases, is reported and explained.
We determine the phase diagrams of anisotropic Kitaev-Heisenberg models on the honeycomb lattice using parton mean-field theories based on different Majorana fermion representations of the S=1/2 spin operators. First, we use a two-dimensional Jordan-Wigner transformation (JWT) involving a semi-infinite snake string operator. To ensure that the fermionized Hamiltonian remains local, we consider the limit of extreme Ising exchange anisotropy in the Heisenberg sector. Second, we use the conventional Kitaev representation in terms of four Majorana fermions subject to local constraints, which we enforce through Lagrange multipliers. For both representations, we self-consistently decouple the interaction terms in the bond and magnetization channels and determine the phase diagrams as a function of the anisotropy of the Kitaev couplings and the relative strength of the Ising exchange. While both mean-field theories produce identical phase boundaries for the topological phase transition between the gapless and gapped Kitaev quantum spin liquids, the JWT fails to correctly describe the magnetic instability and finite-temperature behavior. Our results show that the magnetic phase transition is first order at low temperatures but becomes continuous above a certain temperature. At this energy scale, we also observe a finite-temperature crossover on the quantum-spin-liquid side, from a fractionalized paramagnet at low temperatures, in which gapped flux excitations are frozen out, to a conventional paramagnet at high temperatures. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
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.
While phase transitions between magnetic analogs of the three states of matter-a long-range ordered state, paramagnet, and spin liquid-are extensively studied, the possibility of "liquid-liquid" transitions, namely, between different spin liquids, remains elusive. By introducing the additional Ising coupling into the honeycomb Kitaev model with bond asymmetry, we discover that the Kitaev spin liquid turns into a spin-nematic quantum paramagnet before a magnetic order is established by the Ising coupling. The quantum phase transition between the two liquid states accompanies a topological change driven by fractionalized excitations, the Z_{2} gauge fluxes, and is of first order. At finite temperatures, this yields a persisting first-order transition line that terminates at a critical point located deep inside the regime where quantum spins are fractionalized. It is suggested that similar transitions may occur in other perturbed Kitaev magnets with bond asymmetry.
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.