We investigate the thermodynamics and energy eigenstates of a spin-1/2 coupled trimer, tetramer in a star configuration, and tetrahedron. Using a Heisenberg Hamiltonian with additional Kitaev interactions, we explore the thermodynamic signatures of the Kitaev interaction. Our results show that introducing a Kitaev interaction generates a second Schottky anomaly in the heat capacity for systems with a large K/J ratio. The Kitaev term also introduces nonlinear eigenvalues with respect to a magnetic field, pushing the clusters toward a regime similar to the incomplete Paschen-Back effect and triggering first and second-order quantum phase transitions along with robust thermodynamic behavior. Through this approach, we provide exact analytical solutions that offer insights into Kitaev interactions, both in molecular magnets and in extended systems such as honeycomb or Kagome lattices. Furthermore, we provide insight into experimental measurements for detecting Kitaev interactions in clusters.
Advances in quantum computing technology have been made in recent years due to the evolution of spin clusters. Recent studies have tended towards spin cluster subgeometries to understand more complex structures better. These molecular magnets provide a multitude of phenomena via exchange interactions that allow for advancements in spintronics and other magnetic system applications due to the possibility of increasing speed, data storage, memory, and stability of quantum computing systems. Using the Heisenberg spin–spin exchange Hamiltonian and exact diagonalization, we examine the evolution of quantum energy levels and thermodynamic properties for various spin configurations and exchange interactions. The XXYY quantum spin tetramer considered in this study consists of two coupled dimers with exchange interactions α1J and α1′J and a dimer–dimer exchange interaction α2J. By varying spin values and interaction strengths, we determine the exact energy eigenstates that are used to determine closed-form analytic solutions for the heat capacity and magnetic susceptibility of the system and further analyze the evolution of the properties of the system based on the parameter values chosen. Furthermore, this study shows that the Schottky anomaly shifts towards zero as the ground-state of the system approaches a quantum phase transition between spin states. Additionally, we investigate the development of phase transitions produced by the convergence of the Schottky anomaly with both variable exchange interactions and external magnetic field.
We explore the phase diagram of the Kitaev-Heisenberg model with nearest neighbor interactions on the honeycomb lattice using the exact diagonalization of finite systems combined with the cluster mean field approximation, and supplemented by the insights from analytic approaches: the linear spin-wave and second-order perturbation theories. This study confirms that by varying the balance between the Heisenberg and Kitaev term, frustrated exchange interactions stabilize in this model either one of four phases with magnetic long range order: N\'eel phase, ferromagnetic phase, and two other phases with coexisting antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic bonds, zigzag and stripy phase, or one of two distinct spin-liquid phases. Out of these latter disordered phases, the one with ferromagnetic Kitaev interactions has a substantially broader range of stability as the neighboring competing ordered phases, ferromagnetic and stripy, have very weak quantum fluctuations. Focusing on the quantum spin-liquid phases, we study spatial spin correlations and dynamic spin structure factor of the model by the exact diagonalization technique, and discuss the evolution of gapped low-energy spin response across the quantum phase transitions between the disordered spin liquid and phases with long range magnetic order.
Exchange interactions in spin systems can give rise to quantum entanglement in the ground and thermal states of the systems. We consider a spin tetramer, with spins of magnitude
21, in which the spins interact via nearest-neighbor, diagonal, and four-spin interactions of strength
J1,
J2, and
K, respectively. The ground- and thermal-state entanglement properties of the tetramer are calculated analytically in the various limiting cases. Both bipartite and multipartite entanglements are considered and a signature of the quantum phase transition (QPT), in terms of the entanglement ratio, is identified. The first-order QPT is accompanied by discontinuities in the nearest-neighbor and diagonal concurrences. The magnetic properties of a
S=21 antiferromagnetic polyoxovanadate compound V12 are well explained by tetramers, with
J2=0,
K=0, in which the spins interact via the isotropic Heisenberg exchange interaction Hamiltonian. Treating the magnetic susceptibility $\ensuremath{\chi}$ as an entanglement witness (EW), an estimate of the lower bound of the critical entanglement temperature
Tc below which entanglement is present in the experimental compound, is determined. Two other cases considered include the symmetric tetramer---i.e., tetrahedron
(J1=J2,K=0)---and the symmetric trimer. In both the cases, there is no entanglement between a pair of spins in the thermal state but multipartite entanglement is present. A second EW based on energy provides an estimate of the entanglement temperature
TE below which the thermal state is definitely entangled. This EW detects bipartite entanglement in the case of the tetramer describing a square of spins (the case of V12 ) and multipartite entanglement in the cases of the tetrahedron and symmetric trimer.
Compounds of transition metal ions with strong spin-orbit coupling recently attracted attention due to the possibility to host frustrated bond-dependent anisotropic magnetic interactions. In general, such interactions lead to complex phase diagrams that may include exotic phases, e.g., the Kitaev spin liquid. Here we report on our comprehensive analysis of the global phase diagram of the extended Kitaev-Heisenberg model relevant to honeycomb lattice compounds
Na2IrO3 and $\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{-}{\mathrm{RuCl}}_{3}$. We have utilized recently developed method based on spin coherent states that enabled us to resolve arbitrary spin patterns in the cluster ground states obtained by exact diagonalization. Global trends in the phase diagram are understood in combination with the analytical mappings of the Hamiltonian that uncover peculiar links to known models---Heisenberg, Ising, Kitaev, or compass models on the honeycomb lattice---or reveal entire manifolds of exact fluctuation-free ground states. Finally, our study can serve as a methodological example that can be applied to other spin models with complex bond-dependent non-Heisenberg interactions.
The proliferation of quantum fluctuations and long-range entanglement presents an outstanding challenge for the numerical simulation of interacting spin systems with exotic ground states. Here, we present a toolset of Chebyshev polynomial-based iterative methods that provides a unified framework to study the thermodynamical properties, critical behavior and dynamics of frustrated quantum spin models with controlled accuracy. Similar to previous applications of the Chebyshev spectral methods to condensed matter systems, the algorithmic complexity scales linearly with the Hilbert space dimension and the Chebyshev truncation order. Using this approach, we study two paradigmatic quantum spin models on the honeycomb lattice: the Kitaev-Heisenberg (K-H) and the Kitaev-Ising (K-I) models. We start by applying the Chebyshev toolset to compute nearest-neighbor spin correlations, specific heat and entropy of the K-H model on a 24-spin cluster. Our results are benchmarked against exact diagonalization and a popular iterative method based on thermal pure quantum states. The transitions between a variety of magnetic phases, namely ferromagnetic, Néel, zigzag and stripy antiferromagnetic and quantum spin liquid phases are obtained accurately and efficiently. We also determine the temperature dependence of the spin correlations, over more than three decades in temperature, by means of a finite temperature Chebyshev polynomial method introduced here. Finally, we report novel dynamical signatures of the quantum phase transitions in the K-I model. Our findings suggest that the efficiency, versatility and low-temperature stability of the Chebyshev framework developed here could pave the way for previously unattainable studies of quantum spin models in two dimensions.
Using a combination of quantum Monte Carlo simulations in adapted cluster bases, the finite-temperature Lanczos method, and an effective Hamiltonian approach, we explore the thermodynamic properties of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the star lattice. We consider various parameter regimes on this strongly frustrated Archimedean lattice, including the case of homogeneous couplings as well as the distinct parameter regimes of dominant vs weak dimer coupling. For the latter case, we explore the quantum phase diagram in the presence of inhomogeneous trimer couplings, preserving inversion symmetry. We compare the efficiency of different cluster decoupling schemes for the quantum Monte Carlo simulations in terms of the sign problem, contrast the thermodynamic properties to those of other strongly frustrated quantum magnets such as the kagome lattice model, and comment on previous results from tensor-network calculations regarding a valence bond crystal phase in the regime of weak dimer coupling. Finally, we relate our results to recently reported experimental findings on a Cu-based quantum magnetic spin-1/2 compound with an underlying star lattice structure.