Theory of the field-revealed Kitaev spin liquid

Abstract

Elementary excitations in highly entangled states such as quantum spin liquids may exhibit exotic statistics, different from those obeyed by fundamental bosons and fermions. Excitations called non-Abelian anyons are predicted to exist in a Kitaev spin liquid - the ground state of an exactly solvable model proposed by Kitaev almost a decade ago. A smoking-gun signature of such non-Abelian anyons, namely a half-integer quantized thermal Hall conductivity, was recently reported in $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$. While fascinating, a microscopic theory for this phenomenon in $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$ remains elusive because the pure Kitaev phase cannot capture these anyons appearing in an intermediate magnetic field. Here we present a microscopic theory of the Kitaev spin liquid emerging between the low- and high-field states. Essential to this result is an antiferromagnetic off-diagonal symmetric interaction that permits the Kitaev spin liquid to protrude from the pure ferromagnetic Kitaev limit under a magnetic field. This generic model captures a field-revealed Kitaev spin liquid, and displays strong anisotropy of field effects. A wide regime of non-Abelian anyon Kitaev spin liquid is predicted when the magnetic field is perpendicular to the honeycomb plane.

18 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (10)

• Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
• Mott Insulators in the Strong Spin-Orbit Coupling Limit: From Heisenberg to a Quantum Compass and Kitaev Models
• $\alpha$-RuCl3: a Spin-Orbit Assisted Mott Insulator on a Honeycomb Lattice
• Models and Materials for Generalized Kitaev Magnetism
• On the Origin of Zigzag Magnetic Order in Iridium Oxide Na2IrO3
• Scattering Continuum and Possible Fractionalized Excitations in $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$
• Magnetic order in $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$: a honeycomb lattice quantum magnet with strong spin-orbit coupling
• Kitaev magnetism in honeycomb RuCl3 with intermediate spin-orbit coupling
• Possible proximity of the Mott insulating Iridate Na2IrO3 to a topological phase: Phase diagram of the Heisenberg-Kitaev model in a magnetic field
• Magnetization processes of zigzag states on the honeycomb lattice: Identifying spin models for $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$ and Na${}_2$IrO${}_3$

Cited by in corpus (68)

• Microscopic mechanism for higher-spin Kitaev model
• The planar thermal Hall conductivity in the Kitaev magnet α-RuCl3
• Geometrical frustration versus Kitaev interactions in BaCo${}_2$(AsO${}_4$)${}_2$
• Topological magnons for thermal Hall transport in frustrated magnets with bond-dependent interactions
• Beyond Kitaev physics in strong spin-orbit coupled magnets
• Identification of Magnetic Interactions and High-field Quantum Spin Liquid in $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$
• A magnetic continuum observed by terahertz spectroscopy in a quantum spin liquid candidate BaCo${}_2$(AsO${}_4$)${}_2$
• Magnetic ground state of the Kitaev Na${}_2$Co${}_2$TeO${}_6$ spin liquid candidate
• Giant magnetic in-plane anisotropy and competing instabilities in Na3Co2SbO6
• Variational study of the Kitaev-Heisenberg-Gamma model
• Triple-q order in Na${}_2$Co${}_2$TeO${}_6$ from proximity to hidden-SU(2)-symmetric point
• Oscillations in the magnetothermal conductivity of $\mathbf{\alpha }$-RuCl${}_3$: Evidence of transition anomalies
• Kitaev Quantum Spin Liquids
• Lifshitz phase transitions in one-dimensional Gamma model
• Light-Induced Control of Magnetic Phases in Kitaev Quantum Magnets
• Possible Intermediate Quantum Spin Liquid Phase in $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$ under High Magnetic Fields up to 100 T
• Field-angle dependence of thermal Hall conductivity in magnetically ordered Kitaev-Heisenberg system
• Stripe-yz magnetic order in the triangular-lattice antiferromagnet KCeS2
• Nature of visons in the perturbed ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic Kitaev honeycomb models
• Exchange interactions in $d^5$ Kitaev materials: From Na${}_2$IrO${}_3$ to $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$
• Effect of ring-exchange interactions in the extended Kitaev honeycomb model
• Machine-Learned Phase Diagrams of Generalized Kitaev Honeycomb Magnets
• Insights into the Anisotropic Spin-$S$ Kitaev Chain
• Extent of frustration in the classical Kitaev-$\Gamma$ model via bond anisotropy
• Spin-$S$ Kitaev-Heisenberg model on the honeycomb lattice: A high-order treatment via the many-body coupled cluster method
• Emergent glassiness in disorder-free Kitaev model: Density matrix renormalization group study on a one-dimensional ladder setting
• Information propagation in one-dimensional XY-$\Gamma$ chains
• Neutron spectroscopy evidence for a possible magnetic-field-induced gapless quantum-spin-liquid phase in a Kitaev material $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$
• Spin excitation continuum to topological magnon crossover and thermal Hall conductivity in Kitaev magnets
• Spin-wave dynamics in the KCeS2 delafossite: A theoretical description of powder inelastic neutron-scattering data
• Dissipationless Spin Current Generation in Kitaev's Chiral Spin Liquid
• Symmetry Analysis of Tensors in the Honeycomb Lattice of Edge-Sharing Octahedra
• Phonon Dynamics in the Generalized Kitaev Spin Liquid
• Thermal Hall conductivity of $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$
• Weak-coupling to strong-coupling quantum criticality crossover in a Kitaev quantum spin liquid $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$
• Scattering phenomena for spin transport in Kitaev spin liquid
• Quantum paramagnetism in the hyperhoneycomb Kitaev magnet $\beta$-ZnIrO${}_3$
• Dynamics of fractionalized mean-field theories: consequences for Kitaev materials
• Islands of Chiral Solitons in Integer Spin Kitaev Chains
• Suppression of the antiferromagnetic order by Zn doping in a possible Kitaev material Na${}_2$Co${}_2$TeO${}_6$
• Twice Hidden String Order and Competing Phases in the Spin-1/2 Kitaev-Gamma Ladder
• Topological phase diagrams of in-plane field polarized Kitaev magnets
• Anyon condensation and confinement transition in a Kitaev spin liquid bilayer
• Interplay of magnetic field and trigonal distortion in the honeycomb $\Gamma$ model: Occurrence of a spin-flop phase
• Gapless excitations in non-Abelian Kitaev spin liquids with line defects
• Multinode quantum spin liquids in extended Kitaev honeycomb models: the view from variational Monte Carlo
• Electric field control of a quantum spin liquid in weak Mott insulators
• Non-local features of the spin-orbit exciton in Kitaev materials
• Successive topological phase transitions in two distinct spin-flop phases on the honeycomb lattice
• High-field quantum spin liquid transitions and angle-field phase diagram of Kitaev magnet $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$
• Signatures of a gapless quantum spin liquid in the Kitaev material Na${}_3$Co${}_{2-x}$Zn${}_x$SbO${}_6$
• Emergent Hyper-Magic Manifold in Twisted Kitaev Bilayers
• Exact Ground States and Phase Diagram of the Quantum Compass Model under an in-plane Field
• Jordan-Wigner fermionization of quantum spin systems on arbitrary 2D lattices: A mutual Chern-Simons approach
• Field-Induced Ordered Phases in Anisotropic Spin-1/2 Kitaev Chains
• Complex orders and chirality in the classical Kitaev-$\Gamma$ model
• Assembling Kitaev honeycomb spin liquids from arrays of 1D symmetry protected topological phases
• Vacancies in generic Kitaev spin liquids
• Eleven Competing Phases in the Heisenberg-Gamma (J$\Gamma$) Ladder
• Electric polarization near vortices in the extended Kitaev model
• Field-induced phase transitions in the Kitaev-Heisenberg model: A sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo study and possible application to $\alpha$-RuCl3
• Spin-phonon coupling and thermal Hall effect in the Kitaev model
• Computational exploration of a viable route to Kitaev-quantum spin liquid phase in OsCl${}_3$
• Kitaev interaction and possible spin liquid state in CoI2 and Co2/3Mg1/3I2
• The field-angle anisotropy of proximate Kitaev systems under an in-plane magnetic field
• Vortex creation and control in the Kitaev spin liquid by local bond modulations
• Dominant Kitaev Interaction and Field-induced Quantum Disordered Phase in the Cobaltate Na${}_2$Co${}_2$TeO${}_6$
• Dynamical Response of the Kitaev Spin Liquid under Third-Nearest-Neighbor Heisenberg Interaction