2016/12/02 by Yusheng Hou, Y. S. Hou, Hongjun Xiang +2 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Antiferromagnetism #Condensed matter physics #Electron #Geometry #Magnetic moment #Magnetism #Mathematics #Multiferroics and related materials #Order (exchange) #Physics #Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism #Quantum mechanics #Quantum spin liquid #Spin (aerodynamics) #Spin polarization #Thermodynamics #Zigzag #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.96.054410
published as Phys. Rev. B 96, 054410 (2017) · 16 Pages, 4 Figures, 1 Table
arxiv created 2016/12/02 · openalex publication_date 2017/08/07 · arxiv updated 2017/08/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Recent experiments reveal that the honeycomb ruthenium trichloride \ensuremathα\ensuremath-RuCl3 is a prime candidate of the Kitaev quantum spin liquid (QSL). However, there is no theoretical model which can properly describe its experimental dynamical response due to the lack of a full understanding of its magnetic interactions. Here, we propose a general scheme to calculate the magnetic interactions in systems (e.g., \ensuremathα\ensuremath-RuCl3) with nonnegligible orbital moments by constraining the directions of orbital moments. With this scheme, we put forward a minimal J1\ensuremath-K1\ensuremath-\mathrm\ensuremathΓ1\ensuremath-J3\ensuremath-K3 model for \ensuremathα\ensuremath-RuCl3 and find that: (I) The third nearest neighbor (NN) antiferromagnetic Heisenberg interaction J3 stabilizes the zigzag antiferromagnetic order; (II) The NN symmetric off-diagonal exchange \mathrm\ensuremathΓ1 plays a pivotal role in determining the preferred direction of magnetic moments and generating the spin wave gap. An exact diagonalization study on this model shows that the Kitaev QSL can be realized by suppressing the NN symmetric off-diagonal exchange \mathrm\ensuremathΓ1 and the third NN Heisenberg interaction J3. Thus, we not only propose a powerful general scheme for investigating the intriguing magnetism of Jeff=1/2 magnets, but also point out future directions for realizing the Kitaev QSL in the honeycomb ruthenium trichloride \ensuremathα\ensuremath-RuCl3.