Hickey, C, Cincio, L, Papić, Z et al. (1 more author) (2017) Emergence of Chiral Spin Liquids via Quantum Melting of Non-Coplanar Magnetic Orders. Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, 96 (11). ISSN 1098-0121
Abstract
Quantum spin liquids (QSLs) are long-range entangled states of quantum magnets which lie beyond the Landau paradigm of classifying phases of matter via broken symmetries. A physical route to arriving at QSLs is via frustration-induced quantum melting of ordered states such as valence bond crystals or magnetic orders. Here, we show, using extensive exact diagonalization (ED) and density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) studies of concrete $SU(2)$ invariant spin models on honeycomb, triangular and square lattices, that chiral spin liquids (CSLs) emerge as descendants of triple-$Q$ spin crystals with tetrahedral magnetic order and a large scalar spin chirality. Such ordered-to-CSL melting transitions may yield lattice realizations of effective Chern-Simons-Higgs field theories. Our work provides a distinct unifying perspective on the emergence of CSLs, and suggests that materials with magnetic skyrmion crystal order might provide a good starting point to search for CSLs.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | (c) 2017, American Physical Society. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | cond-mat.str-el; cond-mat.str-el |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Theoretical Physics (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EPSRC EP/P009409/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 13 Sep 2017 11:22 |
Last Modified: | 05 Aug 2019 10:23 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | American Physical Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1103/PhysRevB.96.115115 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:121120 |