Microscopic Roadmap to a Yao-Lee Spin-Orbital Liquid

Abstract

The exactly solvable spin-1/2 Kitaev model on a honeycomb lattice has drawn significant interest, as it offers a pathway to realizing the long-sought after quantum spin liquid. Building upon the Kitaev model, Yao and Lee introduced another exactly solvable model on an unusual star lattice featuring non-abelian spinons. The additional pseudospin degrees of freedom in this model could provide greater stability against perturbations, making this model appealing. However, a mechanism to realize such an interaction in a standard honeycomb lattice remains unknown. Here we provide a microscopic theory to obtain the Yao-Lee model on a honeycomb lattice by utilizing strong spin-orbit coupling of anions edge-shared between two $e_g$ ions in the exchange processes. This mechanism leads to the desired bond-dependent interaction among spins rather than orbitals, unique to our model, implying that the orbitals fractionalize into gapless Majorana fermions and fermionic octupolar excitations emerge. Since the conventional Kugel-Khomskii interaction also appears, we examine the phase diagram including these interactions using classical Monte Carlo simulations and exact diagonalization techniques. Our findings reveal a broad region of disordered states that break rotational symmetry in the bond energy, suggesting intriguing behavior reminiscent of a spin-orbital liquid.

arXiv commentmain text: 7 pages, 3 figures; supplementary information: 6 pages, 7 figures

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• Fractionalized fermionic multicriticality in anisotropic Kitaev spin-orbital liquids
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• Field-induced phase transitions in the Kitaev-Heisenberg model: A sign-problem-free quantum Monte Carlo study and possible application to $\alpha$-RuCl3
• Thermal and quantum fluctuations in extended Kitaev-Yao-Lee spin-orbital model
• Dissipative Yao-Lee Spin-Orbital Model: Exact Solvability and $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$ Symmetry Breaking
• Exactly solvable spin liquids in Kitaev bilayers and moiré superlattices