2007/01/31 by S. Ryu, Shinsei Ryu, Olexei I. Motrunich +4 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Anisotropy #Antiferromagnetism #Condensed matter physics #Effective field theory #Heisenberg model #Lattice (music) #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Quantum spin liquid #Spin polarization #Spins #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.75.184406
published as Phys. Rev. B 75, 184406 (2007) · 14 pages, 8 figures
arxiv created 2007/03/19 · openalex publication_date 2007/05/07 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
There is growing evidence from both experiment and numerical studies that low half-odd integer quantum spins on a kagome lattice with predominant antiferromagnetic near-neighbor interactions do not order magnetically or break lattice symmetries even at temperatures much lower than the exchange interaction strength. Moreover, there appears to be a plethora of low-energy excitations, predominantly singlets but also spin carrying, which suggests that the putative underlying quantum spin liquid is a gapless ``critical spin liquid'' rather than a gapped spin liquid with topological order. Here, we develop an effective field theory approach for the spin-(1)/(2) Heisenberg model with easy-plane anisotropy on the kagome lattice. By employing a vortex duality transformation, followed by a fermionization and flux smearing, we obtain access to a gapless yet stable critical spin liquid phase, which is described by (2+1)-dimensional quantum electrodynamics (QED3) with an emergent SU(8) flavor symmetry. The specific heat, thermal conductivity, and dynamical structure factor are extracted from the effective field theory, and contrasted with other theoretical approaches to the kagome antiferromagnet.