Recent experiments have sparked interest on the ground-state properties and on the excitation spectrum of the spin-$1/2$ triangular XXZ model with strong Ising-like anisotropy. In this work, we introduce and analyze a ``projected'' coherent-state approximation to the model, constructed by projecting spin-product states onto the low-energy configurations of the triangular Ising antiferromagnet. Within this approximation, we discuss the structure of the ground-state ordering and the magnetization curve under a longitudinal field. We then discuss the excitation spectrum by linearizing equations of motion deriving from a time-dependent variational principle. This leads to a natural description of spin-wave-like excitations within the strongly constrained Hilbert space. At zero field, the variational approximation leads to a very flat landscape of quasi-degenerate states, which results in a low-energy pseudo-Goldstone mode in the excitation spectrum. We compare our results to experimental measurements on the cobaltite K$_{2}$Co(SeO$_{3}$)$_{2}$ (KCSO). Our approximation leads to a dramatic improvement as compared to linear spin-wave theory. However, there remain deviations in the value of the pseudo-Goldstone gap and in the dispersion near $M$ points at low field.
Recent experiments have sparked interest on the ground-state properties and on the excitation spectrum of the spin-1/2 triangular XXZ model with strong Ising-like anisotropy. In this work, we introduce and analyze a ``projected'' coherent-state approximation to the model, constructed by projecting spin-product states onto the low-energy configurations of the triangular Ising antiferromagnet. Within this approximation, we discuss the structure of the ground-state ordering and the magnetization curve under a longitudinal field. We then discuss the excitation spectrum by linearizing equations of motion deriving from a time-dependent variational principle. This leads to a natural description of spin-wave-like excitations within the strongly constrained Hilbert space. At zero field, the variational approximation leads to a very flat landscape of quasi-degenerate states, which results in a low-energy pseudo-Goldstone mode in the excitation spectrum. We compare our results to experimental measurements on the cobaltite K2Co(SeO3)2 (KCSO). Our approximation leads to a dramatic improvement as compared to linear spin-wave theory. However, there remain deviations in the value of the pseudo-Goldstone gap and in the dispersion near M points at low field.
Motivated by recent experimental studies, we investigate the spectrum of the nearest-neighbour triangular XXZ model within the 1/S expansion, in the limit in which the exchange couplings present a strong easy-axis anisotropy Jxy/Jzz≪1. We show that in the limit in which 1/S→0 and Jxy→0 at fixed V=Jzz/(SJxy), the triangular spin model can be reduced to an effective boson model with quartic interactions on the honeycomb lattice. This effective model interpolates between a spin-wave (V→0) and a strong-coupling limit (V→∞) and encodes in a simple framework the regimes discussed by Kleine~\emph{et al.}~[Z. Phys. B Condens. Matter~{\bf 86}, 405 (1992);~{\bf 87}, 103 (1992)]. For zero field, the classical ground state of the model presents an accidental degeneracy, which can be traced to a simple symmetry of the classical energy. The model thus offers a transparent realization of a theory with quantum order-by-disorder and a pseudo-Goldstone mode. We analyze the spectrum at zero magnetic field by calculating the self-energy at one-loop order. In the calculation, we introduce a self-consistent renormalization of the energy scale and of the pseudo-Goldstone energy gap; the latter renormalization is essential to remove infrared divergences in the on-shell corrections to the energy dispersion. Finally, we discuss qualitatively the structure of the one-loop corrections in comparison with the spectrum observed experimentally in K2Co(SeO3)2.
Motivated by recent experiments, we investigate the spin- 1 2 XXZ model on the triangular lattice with strong Ising anisotropy, combining large-scale numerical simulations and analytical methods to uncover unconventional spin dynamics at T = 0 . First, we compute the dynamical spin structure factor using density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulations and find excellent agreement with inelastic neutron scattering data on the layered compound K 2 Co ( SeO 3 ) 2 . The low-energy spectrum reveals a rotonlike minimum at the M point, absent in linear spin-wave theory, accompanied by peak intensity and a broad continuum above it. Near the Γ point, we observe an approximately linear dispersion with vanishing spectral weight. Second, we compare two analytical frameworks that reproduce the observed features. The first is a hard-core boson approach, which includes (i) an effective staggered boson model at zero magnetic field, (ii) perturbation theory applied to the one-third magnetization plateau, and (iii) a self-consistent mean-field Schwinger boson theory (SBT). The second framework is based on a variational supersolid quantum dimer model (QDM) ansatz, combined with a single-mode approximation. The SBT captures the broad continuum, the M -point minimum, and linear dispersion at Γ , whereas the QDM reproduces the roton minimum and linear dispersion at finite momentum near Γ . Remarkably, both the QDM wave function and the DMRG ground state exhibit nearly identical structure factors with pronounced transverse photonlike excitations. Together, our comprehensive theoretical and numerical analysis elucidates the microscopic origin of supersolid excitations in the XXZ triangular-lattice model and their proximity to a spin-liquid phase observed experimentally.
Motivated by recent experiments on the quantum magnet K2Co(SeO3)2, we study theoretically the excitation spectrum of the nearest-neighbor triangular XXZ model in the limit of strong easy-axis anisotropy, within the up-up-down (1/3-plateau) phase. We make an expansion in $\ensuremath{\alpha}={J}_{xy}/{J}_{zz}$ instead of 1/S and calculate the magnon dispersion for any value of the spin S at second order in $\ensuremath{\alpha}$, with two important conclusions: (i) the 1/S expansion converges very slowly for S=1/2, making spin-wave theory quantitatively inaccurate up to very large orders, and (ii) compared to the linear spin-wave predictions, our magnon dispersion presents a much better agreement with experimental results on K2Co(SeO3)2, for which $\ensuremath{\alpha}\ensuremath{\simeq}0.08$.
We investigate the quantum dynamics of the spins on different Heisenberg antiferromagnetic spin lattice systems. Firstly, we applied the coupled-cluster method to the spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic \emph{XXZ} model on a square lattice by employing an approximation which contains two-body long-range correlations and high-order four-body local correlations. Improvement is found for the ground-state energy, sublattice magnetization, and the critical anisotropy when comparing with the approximation including the two-body correlations alone. We also obtain the full excitation spectrum which is in good agreement with the quantum Monte Carlo results and the high-order spin-wave theory.Secondly, we study the longitudinal excitations of quantum antiferromagnets on a triangular lattice by a recently proposed microscopic many-body approach based on magnon-density waves. We calculate the full longitudinal excitation spectra of the antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model for a general spin quantum number in the isotropic limit. Similar to the square lattice model, we find that, at the center of the first hexagonal Brillouin zone Γ(q=0) and at the magnetic ordering wavevectors ±[Q=(4π/3,0)], the excitation spectra become gapless in the thermodynamic limit, due to the slow, logarithmic divergence of the structure factor. However, these longitudinal modes on two-dimensional models may be considered as quasi-gapped, as any finite-size effect or small anisotropy will induce a large energy gap, when compared with the counterpart of the transverse spin-wave excitations. We have also investigated the excited states of the quasi-one-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets on hexagonal lattices, including the longitudinal modes based on the magnon-density waves. A model Hamiltonian with a uniaxial single-ion anisotropy is first studied by a spin-wave theory based on the one-boson method; the ground state thus obtained is employed for the study of the longitudinal modes. The full energy spectra of both the transverse modes (i.e., magnons) and the longitudinal modes are obtained as functions of the nearest-neighbor coupling and the anisotropy constants. We have found two longitudinal modes due to the non-collinear nature of the triangular antiferromagnetic order, similar to that of the phenomenological field theory approach by Affleck. The excitation energy gaps due to the anisotropy and the energy gaps of the longitudinal modes without anisotropy are then investigated. We then compares our results for the longitudinal energy gaps at the magnetic wavevectors with the experimental results for several antiferromagnetic compounds with both integer and non-integer spin quantum numbers, and we find good agreements after the higher-order contributions are included in our calculations.
Phase diagrams and excitations of anisotropic S=1 quantum magnets on the triangular lattice
The S=1 bilinear-biquadratic Heisenberg exchange model on the triangular lattice with a single-ion anisotropy has previously been shown to host a number of exotic magnetic and nematic orders [Moreno-Cardoner et al., Phys. Rev. B 90, 144409 (2014)], including an extensive region of "supersolid" order. In this work, we amend the model by an XXZ anisotropy in the exchange interactions. Tuning to the limit of an exactly solvable S=1 generalized Ising-/Blume-Capel-type model provides a controlled limit to access phases at finite transverse exchange. Notably, we find an additional macroscopically degenerate region in the phase diagram and study its fate under perturbation theory. We further map out phase diagrams as a function of the XXZ anisotropy parameter, ratio of bilinear and biquadratic interactions and single-ion anisotropy, and compute corrections to the total ordered moment in various phases using systematically constructed linear flavor-wave theory. We also present linear flavor-wave spectra of various states, finding that the lowest-energy band in three-sublattice generalized (i.e. with Sz=±1,0) Ising/Blume-Capel states, stabilized by strong exchange anisotropies, is remarkably flat, opening up the way to flat-band engineering of magnetic excitation via stabilizing non-trivial Ising-ordered ground states.
Motivated by a recent experimental study on the quantum Ising magnet K2Co(SeO3)2 that presented spectroscopic evidence of zero-field supersolidity (Chen et al., arXiv:2402.15869), we simulate the excitation spectrum of the corresponding microscopic XXZ model for the compound using the recently developed excitation ansatz for infinite projected entangled-pair states. We map out the ground state phase diagram and compute the dynamical spin structure factors across a range of magnetic field strengths, focusing especially on the two supersolid phases found near zero and saturation fields. Our simulated excitation spectra for the zero-field supersolid ``Y'' phase are in excellent agreement with the experimental data, recovering the low-energy branches and integer quantized excited energy levels ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{n}=n{J}_{zz}$. Furthermore, we demonstrate the nonlocal multi-spin-flip features for modes at ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{2}$, indicative of their multimagnon nature. Additionally, we identify characteristics of the high-field supersolid ``$\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Psi}}$'' phase in the simulated spectra, which should be compared with future experimental results.