We use a combination of analytical and numerical techniques to study the phase diagram of the frustrated Heisenberg model on the bilayer honeycomb lattice. Using the Schwinger-boson description of the spin operators followed by a mean-field decoupling, the magnetic phase diagram is studied as a function of the frustration coupling
J2 and the interlayer coupling ${J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}$. The presence of both magnetically ordered and disordered phases is investigated by means of the evaluation of ground-state energy, spin gap, local magnetization, and spin-spin correlations. We observe a phase with a spin gap and short-range N\'eel correlations that survives for nonzero next-nearest-neighbor interaction and interlayer coupling. Furthermore, we detect signatures of a reentrant behavior in the melting of the N\'eel phase and symmetry restoring when the system undergoes a transition from an on-layer nematic valence-bond crystal phase to an interlayer valence-bond crystal phase. We complement our work with exact diagonalization on small clusters and dimer-series expansion calculations, together with a linear spin-wave approach to study the phase diagram as a function of the spin
S, the frustration, and the interlayer couplings.
We study the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a bilayer honeycomb lattice including interlayer frustration. Using a set of complementary approaches, namely, Schwinger bosons, dimer series expansion, bond operators, and exact diagonalization, we map out the quantum phase diagram. Analyzing ground-state energies and elementary excitation spectra, we find four distinct phases, corresponding to three collinear magnetic long-range ordered states, and one quantum disordered interlayer dimer phase. We detail that the latter phase is adiabatically connected to an exact singlet product ground state of the bilayer, which exists along a line of maximum interlayer frustration. The order within the remaining three phases will be clarified.
We use the coupled cluster method (CCM) to study a frustrated spin-12J1−J2−J1⊥ Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a bilayer honeycomb lattice with AA stacking. Both nearest-neighbor (NN) and frustrating next-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic (AFM) exchange interactions are present in each layer, with respective exchange coupling constants J1 > 0 and J2 ≡ κJ1 > 0. The two layers are coupled with NN AFM exchanges with coupling strength J1⊥≡δJ1>0. We calculate to high orders of approximation within the CCM the zero-field transverse magnetic susceptibility χ in the Néel phase. We thus obtain an accurate estimate of the full boundary of the Néel phase in the κδ plane for the zero-temperature quantum phase diagram. We demonstrate explicitly that the phase boundary derived from χ is fully consistent with that obtained from the vanishing of the Néel magnetic order parameter. We thus conclude that at all points along the Néel phase boundary quasiclassical magnetic order gives way to a nonclassical paramagnetic phase with a nonzero energy gap. The Néel phase boundary exhibits a marked reentrant behavior, which we discuss in detail.
The zero-temperature quantum phase diagram of the spin-
21 J1--
J2--
J1⊥ model on an
AA-stacked bilayer honeycomb lattice is investigated using the coupled cluster method (CCM). The model comprises two monolayers in each of which the spins, residing on honeycomb-lattice sites, interact via both nearest-neighbor (NN) and frustrating next-nearest-neighbor isotropic antiferromagnetic (AFM) Heisenberg exchange iteractions, with respective strengths
J1>0 and
J2≡κJ1>0. The two layers are coupled via a comparable Heisenberg exchange interaction between NN interlayer pairs, with a strength
J1⊥≡δJ1. The complete phase boundaries of two quasiclassical collinear AFM phases, namely the Neel and Neel-II phases, are calculated in the
κδ half-plane with
κ>0. Whereas on each monolayer in the Neel state all NN pairs of spins are antiparallel, in the Neel-II state NN pairs of spins on zigzag chains along one of the three equivalent honeycomb-lattice directions are antiparallel, while NN interchain spins are parallel. We calculate directly in the thermodynamic (infinite-lattice) limit both the magnetic order parameter
M and the excitation energy
Δ from the
sTz=0 ground state to the lowest-lying
∣sTz∣=1 excited state (where
sTz is the total
z component of spin for the system as a whole, and where the collinear ordering lies along the
z direction) for both quasiclassical states used (separately) as the CCM model state, on top of which the multispin quantum correlations are then calculated to high orders (
n≤10) in a systematic series of approximations involving
n-spin clusters. The sole approximation made is then to extrapolate the sequences of
nth-order results for
M and
Δ to the exact limit,
n→∞.
Using the density matrix renormalization group, we determine the phase diagram of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a honeycomb lattice with a nearest-neighbor interaction J(1) and a frustrating, next-nearest-neighbor exchange J(2). As frustration increases, the ground state exhibits Néel, plaquette, and dimer orders, with critical points at J(2)/J(1) = 0.22 and 0.35. We observe that both the spin gap and the corresponding order parameters vanish continuously at both the critical points, indicating the presence of deconfined quantum criticality.
We use the coupled cluster method to study the zero-temperature quantum phase diagram of the spin-$\frac{1}{2}{J}_{1}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{2}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{1}^{\ensuremath{\perp}}$ model on the honeycomb bilayer lattice. In each layer, we include both nearest-neighbor and frustrating next-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic exchange couplings, of strength
J1>0 and ${J}_{2}\ensuremath{\equiv}\ensuremath{\kappa}{J}_{1}>0$, respectively. The two layers are coupled by an interlayer nearest-neighbor exchange, with coupling constant ${J}_{1}^{\ensuremath{\perp}}\ensuremath{\equiv}\ensuremath{\delta}{J}_{1}>0$. We calculate directly in the infinite-lattice limit both the ground-state energy per spin and the N\'eel magnetic order parameter, as well as the triplet spin gap. By implementing the method to very high orders of approximation we obtain an accurate estimate for the full boundary of the N\'eel phase in the $\ensuremath{\kappa}\ensuremath{\delta}$ plane. For each value $\ensuremath{\delta}<{\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}^{>}(0)\ensuremath{\approx}1.70(5)$, we find an upper critical value ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{c}(\ensuremath{\delta})$, such that N\'eel order is present for $\ensuremath{\kappa}<{\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{c}(\ensuremath{\delta})$. Conversely, for each value $\ensuremath{\kappa}<{\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{c}(0)\ensuremath{\approx}0.19(1)$, we find an upper critical value ${\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}^{>}(\ensuremath{\kappa})$, such that N\'eel order persists for $0<\ensuremath{\delta}<{\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}^{>}(\ensuremath{\kappa})$. Most interestingly, for values of $\ensuremath{\kappa}$ in the range ${\ensuremath{\kappa}}_{c}(0)<\ensuremath{\kappa}<{\ensuremath{\kappa}}^{>}\ensuremath{\approx}0.215(2)$, we find a reentrant behavior such that N\'eel order exists only in the range ${\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}^{<}(\ensuremath{\kappa})<\ensuremath{\delta}<{\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}^{>}(\ensuremath{\kappa})$, with ${\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}^{<}(\ensuremath{\kappa})>0$. These latter upper and lower critical values coalesce when $\ensuremath{\kappa}={\ensuremath{\kappa}}^{>}$, such that ${\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}^{<}({\ensuremath{\kappa}}^{>})={\ensuremath{\delta}}_{c}^{>}({\ensuremath{\kappa}}^{>})\ensuremath{\approx}0.25(5)$.