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Bulletin of the American Physical Society

Finite-temperature phase transition to a quantum spin liquid in a 3D Kitaev model

Joji Nasu, Toshiyuki Kaji, K. Matsuura, Masafumi Udagawa, Yukitoshi Motome

Published Mar 5, 2014• 0 citations
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Thermodynamics of three-dimensional Kitaev quantum spin liquids via tensor networks

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We study the 3D Kitaev and Kitaev-Heisenberg models, respectively, on the hyperhoneycomb and hyperoctagon lattices, both at zero and finite-temperature, in the thermodynamic limit. Our analysis relies on advanced tensor network (TN) simulations based on graph projected entangled-pair states (gPEPS). We map out the TN phase diagrams of the models and characterize their underlying gapped and gapless phases both at zero and finite temperature. In particular, we demonstrate how cooling down the hyperhoneycomb system from high temperature leads to fractionalization of spins to Majorana fermions and gauge fields that occurs in two separate temperature regimes, leaving their fingerprint on specific heat as a double-peak feature as well as on other quantities such as the thermal entropy, spin-spin correlations, and bond entropy. Using the Majorana representation of the Kitaev model, we further show that the low-temperature thermal transition to the Kitaev quantum spin liquid (QSL) phase is associated with the nontrivial Majorana band topology and the presence of Weyl nodes, which manifests itself via nonvanishing Chern number and finite thermal Hall conductivity. Beyond the pure Kitaev limit, we study the 3D Kitaev-Heisenberg (KH) model on the hyperoctagon lattice and extract the full phase diagram for different Heisenberg couplings. We further explore the thermodynamic properties of the magnetically-ordered regions in the KH model and show that, in contrast to the QSL phase, here the thermal phase transition follows the standard Landau symmetry-breaking theory.

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Neutron scattering signatures of the 3D hyperhoneycomb Kitaev quantum spin liquid

A. Smith, Johannes Knolle, Dmitry L. Kovrizhin +2 more

Motivated by recent synthesis of the hyperhoneycomb material $\ensuremath{\beta}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathrm{Li}}_{2}{\mathrm{IrO}}_{3}$, we study the dynamical structure factor (DSF) of the corresponding 3D Kitaev quantum spin-liquid (QSL), whose fractionalized degrees of freedom are Majorana fermions and emergent flux loops. The properties of this 3D model are known to differ in important ways from those of its 2D counterpart---it has a finite-temperature phase transition, as well as distinct features in the Raman response. We show, however, that the qualitative behavior of the DSF is broadly dimension-independent. Characteristics of the 3D DSF include a response gap even in the gapless QSL phase and an energy dependence deriving from the Majorana fermion density of states. Since the majority of the response is from states containing a single Majorana excitation, our results suggest inelastic neutron scattering as the spectroscopy of choice to illuminate the physics of Majorana fermions in Kitaev QSLs.

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Field-induced phase transitions in the Kitaev-Heisenberg model: A sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo study and possible application to α − RuCl 3

Xiangbin Zou, Shuo Liu, Wenan Guo +1 more

The frustrated magnet $\ensuremath{\alpha}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathrm{RuCl}}_{3}$ is one of the prime candidates for realizing a Kitaev quantum spin liquid (QSL). However, the existence of a field-induced intermediate QSL phase in this material remains under debate. Here, we employ sign-free numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the Kitaev-Heisenberg (KH) model on the honeycomb lattice with $K=\ensuremath{-}2J$ under an applied magnetic field along the $z$ direction. Our findings reveal that the system undergoes a direct quantum phase transition from a zigzag magnetically ordered phase to a spin-polarized phase at zero temperature, which belongs to the 3D XY universality class. At finite temperatures, a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition line separates the spin-polarized phase from a quasi-long-range ordered state, eventually terminating at the quantum critical point. Our results convincingly show that there is no intermediate QSL phase in the KH model with a $z$-direction magnetic field, which we believe will shed important light on understanding experimental observations in $\ensuremath{\alpha}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathrm{RuCl}}_{3}$.

arXiv:2501.12437•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Sep 8, 2025•2 citations

A quantum phase transition for a spin liquid

Anonymous

Physics•Feb 12, 2009•0 citations
We study the 3D Kitaev and Kitaev-Heisenberg models, respectively, on the hyperhoneycomb and hyperoctagon lattices, both at zero and finite-temperature, in the thermodynamic limit. Our analysis relies on advanced tensor network (TN) simulations based on graph projected entangled-pair states (gPEPS). We map out the TN phase diagrams of the models and characterize their underlying gapped and gapless phases both at zero and finite temperature. In particular, we demonstrate how cooling down the hyperhoneycomb system from high temperature leads to fractionalization of spins to Majorana fermions and gauge fields that occurs in two separate temperature regimes, leaving their fingerprint on specific heat as a double-peak feature as well as on other quantities such as the thermal entropy, spin-spin correlations, and bond entropy. Using the Majorana representation of the Kitaev model, we further show that the low-temperature thermal transition to the Kitaev quantum spin liquid (QSL) phase is associated with the nontrivial Majorana band topology and the presence of Weyl nodes, which manifests itself via nonvanishing Chern number and finite thermal Hall conductivity. Beyond the pure Kitaev limit, we study the 3D Kitaev-Heisenberg (KH) model on the hyperoctagon lattice and extract the full phase diagram for different Heisenberg couplings. We further explore the thermodynamic properties of the magnetically-ordered regions in the KH model and show that, in contrast to the QSL phase, here the thermal phase transition follows the standard Landau symmetry-breaking theory.
Motivated by recent synthesis of the hyperhoneycomb material $\ensuremath{\beta}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathrm{Li}}_{2}{\mathrm{IrO}}_{3}$, we study the dynamical structure factor (DSF) of the corresponding 3D Kitaev quantum spin-liquid (QSL), whose fractionalized degrees of freedom are Majorana fermions and emergent flux loops. The properties of this 3D model are known to differ in important ways from those of its 2D counterpart---it has a finite-temperature phase transition, as well as distinct features in the Raman response. We show, however, that the qualitative behavior of the DSF is broadly dimension-independent. Characteristics of the 3D DSF include a response gap even in the gapless QSL phase and an energy dependence deriving from the Majorana fermion density of states. Since the majority of the response is from states containing a single Majorana excitation, our results suggest inelastic neutron scattering as the spectroscopy of choice to illuminate the physics of Majorana fermions in Kitaev QSLs.
The frustrated magnet $\ensuremath{\alpha}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathrm{RuCl}}_{3}$ is one of the prime candidates for realizing a Kitaev quantum spin liquid (QSL). However, the existence of a field-induced intermediate QSL phase in this material remains under debate. Here, we employ sign-free numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the Kitaev-Heisenberg (KH) model on the honeycomb lattice with $K=\ensuremath{-}2J$ under an applied magnetic field along the zzz direction. Our findings reveal that the system undergoes a direct quantum phase transition from a zigzag magnetically ordered phase to a spin-polarized phase at zero temperature, which belongs to the 3D XY universality class. At finite temperatures, a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition line separates the spin-polarized phase from a quasi-long-range ordered state, eventually terminating at the quantum critical point. Our results convincingly show that there is no intermediate QSL phase in the KH model with a zzz-direction magnetic field, which we believe will shed important light on understanding experimental observations in $\ensuremath{\alpha}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathrm{RuCl}}_{3}$.