We present the phase diagram of the
S=1/2 Heisenberg model on the two leg ladder with cyclic four-spin exchange, determined by a combination of exact diagonalization and density-matrix renormalization group techniques. We find six different phases and regimes: the rung singlet phase, a ferromagnetic phase, two symmetry broken phases with staggered dimers and staggered scalar chiralities, and a gapped region with dominant vector chirality, or collinear spin correlations. We localize the phase transitions and investigate their nature.
We study the spin-1/2 two-leg Heisenberg ladder with four-spin ring exchanges under a magnetic field. We introduce an exact duality transformation which is an extension of the spin-chirality duality developed previously and yields a new self-dual surface in the parameter space. We then determine the magnetic phase diagram using the numerical approaches of the density-matrix renormalization-group and exact diagonalization methods. We demonstrate the appearance of a magnetization plateau and the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid with dominant vector-chirality quasi-long-range order for a wide parameter regime of strong ring exchange. A "nematic" phase, in which magnons form bound pairs and the magnon-pairing correlation functions dominate, is also identified.
A spin-1/2 Heisenberg model with a chirality-chirality interaction (CCI) on a two-leg ladder provides a minimal setup to explore an interplay between spin and chirality degrees of freedom. This model is potentially relevant for understanding the effects of a four-spin ring exchange and a phonon-mediated interaction on a ladder. By applying the Abelian bosonization and two types of spin-chirality duality, we derive a comprehensive ground-state phase diagram that includes previously unexplored cases of a ferromagnetic rung exchange
J⊥<0 or a negative CCI
Kch<0. The phase diagram consists of the rung singlet (RS) phase, the Haldane phase, and three non-magnetic ordered phases. Moreover, the RS and Haldane phases consist of several regions with different dominant correlations in terms of spin, dimer, or chirality. We perform numerical simulations to confirm the predicted phase structure and critical properties.