Transverse field Ising model on the checkerboard lattice: a plaquette-operator approach
M. Sadrzadeh, A. Langari
Abstract
We study the effect of quantum fluctuations by means of a transverse magnetic field ($\Gamma$) on the antiferromagnetic $J_1-J_2$ Ising model on the checkerboard lattice, the two dimensional version of pyrochlore lattice. A plaquette operator formalism has been implemented to bosonise the model, in which a single boson is associated to each eigenstate of a plaquette and the inter-plaquette interactions define an effective Hamiltonian. The excitations of a plaquette would represent an-harmonic fluctuations of the model, which lead not only to lower the excitation energy compared with a single-spin flip but also to lift the extensive degeneracy in favor of a plaquette ordered state, which breaks lattice rotational symmetry for $J_2>J_1$ (the collinear phase). The bosonic excitation gap vanishes at the critical boundary to N\'{e}el ($J_2 J_1$) phases, respectively. At the homogeneous coupling ($J_1=J_2$) a (canted) resonating plaquette state (RPS) is established from an-harmonic fluctuations, which lasts for low fields, $\Gamma/J_1\lesssim 0.4$, followed by a crossover to the fully polarized phase. We will show that our results predict an order-by-disorder as a results of transverse field at the critical point ($J_2=0.5 J_1$) of the antiferromagnetic $J_1-J_2$ Ising square lattice.