Recent numerical studies have provided strong evidence for a gapped
Z2 quantum spin liquid in the kagome lattice spin-1/2 Heisenberg model. A special feature of spin liquids is that symmetries can be fractionalized, and different patterns of symmetry fractionalization imply distinct phases. The symmetry fractionalization pattern for the kagome spin liquid remains to be determined. A popular approach to studying spin liquids is to decompose the physical spin into partons obeying either Bose (Schwinger bosons) or Fermi (Abrikosov fermions) statistics, which are then treated within mean-field theory. A long-standing question has been whether these two approaches are truly distinct, or describe the same phase in complementary ways. Here we show that all
8Z2 spin liquid phases in the Schwinger-boson mean-field (SBMF) construction can also be described in terms of Abrikosov fermions, unifying pairs of theories that seem rather distinct. The key idea is that for
Z2 spin liquid states that admit a SBMF description on the kagome lattice, the symmetry fractionalization of visions is uniquely fixed. Two promising candidate states for the kagome Heisenberg model, Sachdev's
Q1=Q2 SBMF state and the Lu-Ran-Lee ${Z}_{2}[0,\ensuremath{\pi}]\ensuremath{\beta}$ Abrikosov-fermion state, are found to describe the same symmetric spin liquid phase. We expect these results to aid in a complete specification of the numerically observed spin liquid phase. We also discuss a set of
Z2 spin liquid phases in the fermionic parton approach, where spin rotation and lattice symmetries protect gapless edge states that do not admit a SBMF description.
We study different ways of symmetry fractionalization in
Z2 spin liquids on the triangular lattice. Our classification can be used to identify the symmetry fractionalization in the
Z2 spin liquid reported in recent density-matrix-renormalization-group simulations for
J1−J2 spin model on the triangular lattice. We find 64 types of symmetry enriched
Z2 spin liquid states on triangular lattice. Besides 8 states constructed in Schwinger-boson parton wavefunctions, 12 more states can be realized in Abrikosov-fermion parton construction. Within a larger gauge group than SU(2), the rest 44 states are also found in a spin-3/2 system. Among 20 types of Abrikosov-fermion Gutzwillerprojected wavefunctions, No.B5 state is a promising candidate for the
Z2 spin liquid for
J1−J2 spin model on the triangular lattice. No.B5 lies close to Dirac spin liquid (DSL). However, variational Monte Carlo simulation find that DSL has a good variational energy and
J1−J2 spin model cannot open a gap for spinons on top of DSL to stabilize No.B5 state.
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Z2 fractionalized Fermi liquid (FL*) is a novel state of strongly correlated quantum matter. Although it is metallic, it violates Luttinger's theorem on the volume enclosed by the Fermi surface obeyed by conventional metals; this is possible due to the presence of emergent gauge excitations. The authors study here the superconducting states that can arise out of instabilities of such a topological metal. In particular, they focus on a FL* topological metal that has favorable energetics on the square lattice with nematic order, relevant to the cuprate superconductors. They find that a Higgs transition out of this FL* results in confinement of the anyonic degrees of freedom, and the resulting state is a superconductor with broken translation symmetry or time-reversal invariance. In the process, they also establish a complete mapping between bosonic and fermionic descriptions of time-reversal invariant gapped insulating
Z2 spin liquid states on the rectangular lattice, which, on doping with charge carriers, can give rise to FL* phases. They also note a possible connection to the recent observation of pair density waves in the superconducting state of the underdoped cuprates.