Field-induced quantum spin liquid in the Kitaev-Heisenberg model and its relation to alpha-RuCl3

Article

关键词: ANYONS;   

DOI  :  10.1103/PhysRevB.100.165123

来源: SCIE

【 摘 要 】

Recently considerable excitement has arisen due to the experimental observation of a field-induced spin liquid phase in the compound alpha-RuCl3. However, the nature of this putative spin liquid phase and the relevant microscopic model Hamiltonian remain still unclear. In this work, we address these questions by performing large-scale numerical simulations of a generalized Kitaev-Heisenberg model proposed to describe the physics of alpha-RuCl3. While an intermediate phase does not appear for in-plane magnetic fields, our results strongly suggest that a stable intermediate spin liquid phase, sandwiched between a magnetically ordered phase at low fields and a high-field polarized phase, can be induced by out-of-plane magnetic fields. Moreover, we show that this field-induced spin liquid phase can be smoothly connected to a spin liquid possessing a spinon Fermi surface as proposed recently for the Kitaev model. The relevance of our results to alpha-RuCl3 is also discussed.

【 授权许可】

Free