2017/03/23 by Subhasree Pradhan, M. S. Laad, Pradhan, Subhasree +7
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1703.08200
arxiv created 2017/04/19 · arxiv updated 2017/04/20
The fate of exotic spin liquid states with fractionalized excitations at finite temperature (T) is of great interest, since signatures of fractionalization manifest in finite-temperature (T) dynamics in real systems, above the tiny magnetic ordering scales. Here, we study a Jordan-Wigner fermionized Kitaev spin liquid at finite T employing combined Exact diagonalization and Monte Carlo simulation methods. We uncover (i) checkerboard or stripy-ordered flux crystals depending on density of flux, and (ii) establish, surprisingly, that: (a) the finite-T version of the T=0 transition from a gapless to gapped phases in the Kitaev model is a Mott transition of the fermions, belonging to the two-dimensional Ising universality class. These transitions correspond to a topological transition between a string condensate and a dilute closed string state (b) the Mott "insulator" phase is a precise realization of Laughlin's gossamer (here, p-wave) superconductor (g-SC), and (c) the Kitaev Toric Code phase (TC) is a \it fully Gutzwiller-projected p-wave SC. These findings establish the finite-T QSL phases in the d = 2 to be \it hidden Fermi liquid(s) of neutral fermions.