An exact chiral spin liquid with non-Abelian anyons

Abstract

We establish the existence of a chiral spin liquid (CSL) as the exact ground state of the Kitaev model on a decorated honeycomb lattice, which is obtained by replacing each site in the familiar honeycomb lattice with a triangle. The CSL state spontaneously breaks time reversal symmetry but preserves other symmetries. There are two topologically distinct CSLs separated by a quantum critical point. Interestingly, vortex excitations in the topologically nontrivial (Chern number $\pm 1$) CSL obey non-Abelian statistics.

4 pages, 2 figures; published version in Phys. Rev. Lett

References in corpus (6)

• High Resolution Polar Kerr Effect Measurements of Sr2RuO4: Evidence for Broken Time Reversal Symmetry in the Superconducting State
• Exact results for spin dynamics and fractionization in the Kitaev Model
• Topological characterization of quantum phase transitions in a S=1/2 spin model
• Edge solitons of topological insulators and fractionalized quasiparticles in two dimensions
• Spin Hamiltonian for which the Chiral Spin Liquid is the Exact Ground State
• Topological degeneracy of non-Abelian states for dummies

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Mott Insulators of Ultracold Fermionic Alkaline Earth Atoms: Underconstrained Magnetism and Chiral Spin Liquid
• Non-Abelian Statistics in a Quantum Antiferromagnet
• Topological Order and Non-Abelian Statistics in Noncentrosymmetric s-Wave Superconductors
• Emergent Fermions and Anyons in the Kitaev Model
• Topological phases and quantum computation
• A $\Gamma$-matrix generalization of the Kitaev model
• Perturbative approach to an exactly solved problem: the Kitaev honeycomb model
• Creation and Manipulation of Anyons in the Kitaev Model
• Three-dimensional topological phase on the diamond lattice
• Perturbative study of the Kitaev model with spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking
• Fidelity in topological quantum phases of matter
• Non-Abelian statistics as a Berry phase in exactly solvable models
• Dimensional crossover in a spin liquid to helimagnet quantum phase transition
• Thermal states of the Kitaev honeycomb model: a Bures metric analysis
• The Zero Temperature Phase Diagram of the Kitaev Model
• Four-Step Evolution of Spin-Hall Conductance: Tight-Binding Electrons with Rashba Coupling in a Magnetic Field