Resonating Valence Bond Wave Functions for Strongly Frustrated Spin Systems

Luca Capriotti; Federico Becca; Alberto Parola; Sandro Sorella

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.097201

Resonating Valence Bond Wave Functions for Strongly Frustrated Spin Systems

Luca Capriotti, Federico Becca, Alberto Parola, and Sandro Sorella

Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 097201 – Published 8 August 2001

Abstract

The resonating-valence-bond (RVB) theory for two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets is shown to be the correct paradigm for large enough “quantum frustration.” This scenario, proposed a long time ago but never confirmed by microscopic calculations, is strongly supported by a new type of variational wave function, which is extremely close to the exact ground state of the $J_{1} {- J}_{2}$ Heisenberg model for $0.4 ≲ J_{2} {/ J}_{1} ≲ 0.5$ . This wave function is proposed to represent the generic spin-half RVB ground state in spin liquids.

Received 23 April 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.097201

Authors & Affiliations

Luca Capriotti¹, Federico Becca², Alberto Parola³, and Sandro Sorella⁴

¹Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia, Unità di Firenze, I-50125 Firenze, Italy
²Institut de Physique Théorique, Université de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
³Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia and Dipartimento di Scienze, Università dell'Insubria, I-22100 Como, Italy
⁴Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia, and SISSA, I-34014 Trieste, Italy