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Exotic Phases in Quantum Magnets. MPA Fisher. KITPC, 7/18/07. Interest: Novel Electronic phases of Mott insulators. Outline:. 2d Spin liquids: 2 Classes Topological Spin liquids Critical Spin liquids Doped Mott insulators: Conducting Non-Fermi liquids.
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Exotic Phases in Quantum Magnets MPA Fisher KITPC, 7/18/07 Interest: Novel Electronic phases of Mott insulators Outline: • 2d Spin liquids: 2 Classes • Topological Spin liquids • Critical Spin liquids • Doped Mott insulators: Conducting Non-Fermi liquids
Quantum theory of solids: Standard Paradigm Landau Fermi Liquid Theory py Free Fermions px Filled Fermi sea particle/hole excitations Interacting Fermions Retain a Fermi surface Luttingers Thm: Volume of Fermi sea same as for free fermions Particle/hole excitations are long lived near FS Vanishing decay rate
Add periodic potential from ions in crystal • Plane waves become Bloch states • Energy Bands and forbidden energies (gaps) • Band insulators: Filled bands • Metals: Partially filled highest energy band Even number of electrons/cell - (usually) a band insulator Odd number per cell - always a metal
Band Theory • s or p shell orbitals : Broad bands Simple (eg noble) metals: Cu, Ag, Au - 4s1, 5s1, 6s1: 1 electron/unit cell Semiconductors - Si, Ge - 4sp3, 5sp3: 4 electrons/unit cell Band Insulators - Diamond: 4 electrons/unit cell Band Theory Works Breakdown • d or f shell electrons: Very narrow “bands” Transition Metal Oxides (Cuprates, Manganites, Chlorides, Bromides,…): Partially filled 3d and 4d bands Rare Earth and Heavy Fermion Materials: Partially filled 4f and 5f bands Electrons can ``self-localize”
Mott Insulators: Insulating materials with an odd number of electrons/unit cell Correlation effects are critical! Hubbard model with one electron per site on average: on-site repulsion electron creation/annihilation operators on sites of lattice U inter-site hopping t
Spin Physics For U>>t expect each electron gets self-localized on a site (this is a Mott insulator) Residual spin physics: s=1/2 operators on each site Heisenberg Hamiltonian: Antiferromagnetic Exchange
Symmetry Breaking Mott Insulator Unit cell doubling (“Band Insulator”) Symmetry breaking instability • Magnetic Long Ranged Order (spin rotation sym breaking) Ex: 2d square Lattice AFM (eg undoped cuprates La2CuO4 ) 2 electrons/cell • Spin Peierls(translation symmetry breaking) 2 electrons/cell Valence Bond (singlet) =
? How to suppress order (i.e., symmetry-breaking)? • Low spin (i.e., s = ½) • Low dimensionality • e.g., 1D Heisenberg chain (simplest example of critical phase) • Much harder in 2D! “almost” AFM order: S(r)·S(0) ~ (-1) r/ r2 • Geometric Frustration • Triangular lattice • Kagome lattice • Doping (eg. Hi-Tc): Conducting Non-Fermi liquids
Spin Liquid: Holy Grail Theorem: Mott insulators with one electron/cell have low energy excitations above the ground state with (E_1 - E_0) < ln(L)/L for system of size L by L. (Matt Hastings, 2005) Remarkable implication - Exotic Quantum Ground States are guaranteed in a Mott insulator with no broken symmetries Such quantum disordered ground states of a Mott insulator are generally referred to as “spin liquids”
Spin-liquids: 2 Classes RVB state (Anderson) • Topological Spin liquids • Topological degeneracy Ground state degeneracy on torus • Short-range correlations • Gapped local excitations • Particles with fractional quantum numbers odd even odd • Critical Spin liquids - Stable Critical Phase with no broken symmetries - Gapless excitations with no free particle description • Power-law correlations • Valence bonds on many length scales
Simplest Topological Spin liquid (Z2) Resonating Valence Bond “Picture” 2d square lattice s=1/2 AFM = Singlet or a Valence Bond - Gains exchange energy J Valence Bond Solid
Plaquette Resonance Resonating Valence Bond “Spin liquid”
Plaquette Resonance Resonating Valence Bond “Spin liquid”
Plaquette Resonance Resonating Valence Bond “Spin liquid”
Gapped Spin Excitations “Break” a Valence Bond - costs energy of order J Create s=1 excitation Try to separate two s=1/2 “spinons” Valence Bond Solid Energy cost is linear in separation Spinons are “Confined” in VBS
RVB State: Exhibits Fractionalization! Energy cost stays finite when spinons are separated Spinons are “deconfined” in the RVB state Spinon carries the electrons spin, but not its charge ! The electron is “fractionalized”.
J1=J2=J3 Kagome s=1/2 in easy-axis limit: Topological spin liquid ground state (Z2) J2 J1 J3 For Jz >> Jxy have 3-up and 3-down spins on each hexagon. Perturb in Jxy projecting into subspace to get ring model
J1=J2=J3 Kagome s=1/2 in easy-axis limit: Topological spin liquid ground state (Z2) J2 J1 J3 For Jz >> Jxy have 3-up and 3-down spins on each hexagon. Perturb in Jxy projecting into subspace to get ring model
Properties of Ring Model L. Balents, M.P.A.F., S.M. Girvin, Phys. Rev. B 65, 224412 (2002) • No sign problem! • Can add a ring flip suppression term and tune to soluble Rokshar-Kivelson point • Can identify “spinons” (sz =1/2) and Z2 vortices (visons) - Z2 Topological order • Exact diagonalization shows Z2 Phase survives in original easy-axis limit D. N. Sheng, Leon Balents Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 146805 (2005)
Other models with topologically ordered spin liquid phases (a partial list) • Quantum dimer models • Rotor boson models • Honeycomb “Kitaev” model • 3d Pyrochlore antiferromagnet Moessner, Sondhi Misguich et al Motrunich, Senthil Kitaev Freedman, Nayak, Shtengel Hermele, Balents, M.P.A.F ■Models are not crazy but contrived. It remains a huge challenge to find these phases in the lab – and develop theoretical techniques to look for them in realistic models.
Critical Spin liquids Key experimental signature: Non-vanishing magnetic susceptibility in the zero temperature limit with no magnetic (or other) symmetry breaking Typically have some magnetic ordering, say Neel, at low temperatures: T Frustration parameter:
Triangular lattice critical spin liquids? • Organic Mott Insulator, -(ET)2Cu2(CN)3: f ~ 104 • A weak Mott insulator - small charge gap • Nearly isotropic, large exchange energy (J ~ 250K) • No LRO detected down to 32mK : Spin-liquid ground state? • Cs2CuCl4: f ~ 5-10 • Anisotropic, low exchange energy (J ~ 1-4K) • AFM order at T=0.6K AFM Spin liquid? T 0 0.62K
Kagome lattice critical spin liquids? • Iron Jarosite, KFe3 (OH)6(SO4)2: f ~ 20 Fe3+ s=5/2 , Tcw =800K Single crystals Q=0 Coplaner order at TN = 45K • 2d “spinels” Kag/triang planes SrCr8Ga4O19f ~ 100 Cr3+ s=3/2, Tcw = 500K, Glassy ordering at Tg = 3K C = T2 for T<5K • Volborthite Cu3V2O7(OH)2 2H2O f ~ 75 Cu2+ s=1/2 Tcw = 115K Glassy at T < 2K • Herbertsmithite ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2f > 600 Cu2+ s=1/2 , Tcw = 300K, Tc< 2K Ferromagnetic tendency for T low, C = T2/3 ?? Lattice of corner sharing triangles All show much reduced order - if any - and low energy spin excitations present
Theoretical approaches to critical spin liquids • Slave Particles: • Express s=1/2 spin operator in terms of Fermionic spinons • Mean field theory: Free spinons hopping on the lattice • Critical spin liquids - Fermi surface or Dirac fermi points for spinons • Gauge field U(1) minimally coupled to spinons • For Dirac spinons: QED3 Boson/Vortex Duality plus vortex fermionization: (eg: Easy plane triangular/Kagome AFM’s)
+ - Triangular/Kagome s=1/2 XY AF equivalent to bosons in “magnetic field” boson interactions pi flux thru each triangle boson hopping on triangular lattice Focus on vortices “Vortex” Vortex number N=1 Due to frustration, the dual vortices are at “half-filling” “Anti-vortex” Vortex number N=0
Exact mapping from boson to vortex variables. Boson-Vortex Duality Dual “magnetic” field Dual “electric” field Vortex number Vortex carries dual gauge charge • All non-locality is accounted for by dual U(1) gauge force
J’ J + - Duality for triangular AFM Frustrated spins vortex creation/annihilation ops: Half-filled bosonic vortices w/ “electromagnetic” interactions “Vortex” vortex hopping “Anti-vortex” Vortices see pi flux thru each hexagon
~ Chern-Simons Flux Attachment: Fermionic vortices • Difficult to work with half-filled bosonic vortices fermionize! Chern-Simons flux attachment bosonic vortex fermionic vortex + 2 flux • “Flux-smearing” mean-field: Half-filled fermions on honeycomb with pi-flux E • Band structure: 4 Dirac points k
Low energy Vortex field theory: QED3 with flavor SU(4) N = 4 flavors Linearize around Dirac points With log vortex interactions can eliminate Chern-Simons term Four-fermion interactions: irrelevant for N>Nc If Nc>4 then have a stable: “Algebraic vortex liquid” • “Critical Phase” with no free particle description • No broken symmetries - but an emergent SU(4) • Power-law correlations • Stable gapless spin-liquid (no fine tuning)
J’ Fermionized Vortices for easy-plane Kagome AFM J • “Decorated” Triangular Lattice XY AFM • s=1/2 on Kagome, s=1 on “red” sites • reduces to a Kagome s=1/2 with AFM J1, and weak FM J2=J3 J2<0 Vortex duality J1>0 J3<0 Flux-smeared mean field: Fermionic vortices hopping on “decorated” honeycomb
Vortex Band Structure:N=8 Dirac Nodes !! QED3 with SU(8) Flavor Symmetry Provided Nc <8will have a stable: • “Algebraic vortex liquid” in s=1/2 Kagome XY Model • Stable “Critical Phase” • No broken symmetries • Many gapless singlets (from Dirac nodes) • Spin correlations decay with large power law - “spin pseudogap”
Doped Mott insulators High Tc Cuprates Doped Mott insulator becomes a d-wave superconductor Strange metal: Itinerant Non-Fermi liquid with “Fermi surface” Pseudo-gap: Itinerant Non-Fermi liquid with nodal fermions
Slave Particle approach toitinerant non-Fermi liquids Decompose the electron: spinless charge e boson and s=1/2 neutral fermionic spinon, coupled via compact U(1) gauge field Half-Filling: One boson/site - Mott insulator of bosons Spinons describes magnetism (Neel order, spin liquid,...) Dope away from half-filling: Bosons become itinerant Fermi Liquid: Bosons condense with spinons in Fermi sea Non-Fermi Liquid: Bosons form an uncondensed fluid - a “Bose metal”, with spinons in Fermi sea (say)
Uncondensed quantum fluid of bosons:D-wave Bose Liquid (DBL) O. Motrunich/ MPAF cond-mat/0703261 Wavefunctions: N bosons moving in 2d: Define a ``relative single particle function” Laughlin nu=1/2 Bosons: Point nodes in ``relative particle function” Relative d+id 2-particle correlations Goal: Construct time-reversal invariant analog of Laughlin, (with relative dxy 2-particle correlations) Hint: nu=1/2 Laughlin is a determinant squared p+ip 2-body
Wavefunction for D-wave Bose Liquid (DBL) ``S-wave” Bose liquid: square the wavefunction of Fermi sea wf is non-negative and has ODLRO - a superfluid ``D-wave” Bose liquid: Product of 2 different fermi sea determinants, elongated in the x or y directions Nodal structure of DBL wavefunction: - + + - Dxy relative 2-particle correlations
Analysis of DBL phase • Equal time correlators obtained numerically from variational wavefunctions • Slave fermion decomposition and mean field theory • Gauge field fluctuations for slave fermions - stability of DBL, enhanced correlators • “Local” variant of phase - D-wave Local Bose liquid (DLBL) • Lattice Ring Hamiltonian and variational energetics
Properties of DBL/DLBL • Stable gapless quantum fluids of uncondensed itinerant bosons • Boson Greens function in DBL has oscillatory power law decay with direction dependent wavevectors and exponents, the wavevectors enclose a k-space volume determined by the total Bose density (Luttinger theorem) • Boson Greens function in DLBL is spatially short-ranged • Power law local Boson tunneling DOS in both DBL and DLBL • DBL and DLBL are both ``metals” with resistance R(T) ~ T4/3 • Density-density correlator exhibits oscillatory power laws, also with direction dependent wavevectors and exponents in both DBL and DLBL
D-Wave Metal Itinerant non-Fermi liquid phase of 2d electrons Wavefunction: t-K Ring Hamiltonian (no double occupancy constraint) 4 3 4 3 2 2 1 1 Electron singlet pair “rotation” term t >> K Fermi liquid t ~ K D-metal (?)
Summary & Outlook • Quantum spin liquids come in 2 varieties: Topological and critical, and can be accessed using slave particles, vortex duality/fermionization, ... • Several experimental s=1/2 triangular and Kagome AFM’s are candidates for critical spin liquids (not topological spin liquids) • D-wave Bose liquid: a 2d uncondensed quantum fluid of itinerant bosons with many gapless strongly interacting excitations, metallic type transport,... • Much future work: • Characterize/explore critical spin liquids • Unambiguously establish an experimental spin liquid • Explore the D-wave metal, a non-Fermi liquid of itinerant electrons