Tetramerization in a SU(4) Heisenberg model on the honeycomb lattice

Miklós Lajkó and Karlo Penc
Phys. Rev. B 87, 224428 – Published 27 June 2013

Abstract

The SU(4) Heisenberg model can serve as a low-energy model of the Mott insulating state in materials where the spins and orbitals are highly symmetric or in systems of alkaline-earth atoms on an optical lattice. Recently, it has been argued that on the honeycomb lattice, the model exhibits a unique spin-orbital liquid phase with an algebraic decay of correlations [P. Corboz et al., Phys. Rev. X 2, 041013 (2012)]. Here we study the instability of the algebraic spin-orbital liquid toward the spontaneous formation of SU(4) singlet plaquettes (tetramerization). Using a variational Monte Carlo approach to evaluate the projected wave function of fermions with π-flux state, we find that the algebraic liquid is robust and that a small finite value of the next-nearest exchange is needed to induce tetramerization. We also studied the phase diagram of a model which interpolates between the nearest-neighbor Heisenberg model and a Hamiltonian for which the singlet-plaquette-product state is an exact ground state.

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  • Received 25 March 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.87.224428

©2013 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Miklós Lajkó1,2 and Karlo Penc1,2,3

  • 1Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, Wigner Research Centre for Physics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, P.O.B. 49, H-1525 Budapest, Hungary
  • 2Department of Physics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, H-1111 Budapest, Hungary
  • 3Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-8581, Japan

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Issue

Vol. 87, Iss. 22 — 1 June 2013

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