Magnetoelectric generation of a Majorana-Fermi surface in Kitaev's honeycomb model

Abstract

We study the effects of static magnetic and electric fields on Kitaev's honeycomb model. Using the electric polarization operator appropriate for Kitaev materials, we derive the effective Hamiltonian for the emergent Majorana fermions to second-order in both the electric and magnetic fields. We find that while individually each perturbation does not qualitatively alter Kitaev spin liquid, the cross-term induces a finite chemical potential at each Dirac node, giving rise to a Majorana-Fermi surface. We argue this gapless phase is stable and exhibits typical metallic phenomenology, such as linear in temperature heat capacity and finite, but non-quantized, thermal Hall response. Finally, we speculate on the potential for realization of this physics in Kitaev materials.

18 pages, 12 figures

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Scanning tunneling spectroscopy of Majorana zero modes in a Kitaev spin liquid
• Asymmetric modulation of Majorana excitation spectra and nonreciprocal thermal transport in the Kitaev spin liquid under a staggered magnetic field
• Emergent SU(2)${}_1$ conformal symmetry in the spin-1/2 Kitaev-Gamma chain with a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction
• Evidence for distortion-induced local electric polarization in $\alpha$-RuCl${}_3$
• Digital Quantum Simulation of the Kitaev Quantum Spin Liquid
• Majorana Fermi surface state in a network of quantum spin chains
• Susceptibility anisotropy and absence of ferroelectric order in the Kitaev spin liquid candidate Na${}_2$Co${}_2$TeO${}_6$
• Magnetic field effects on the Kitaev model coupled to environment
• Tuning the Chern number of Kitaev quantum spin liquid