152 research outputs found
Heisenberg antiferromagnet with anisotropic exchange on the Kagome lattice: Description of the magnetic properties of volborthite
We study the properties of the Heisenberg antiferromagnet with spatially
anisotropic nearest-neighbour exchange couplings on the kagome net, i.e. with
coupling J in one lattice direction and couplings J' along the other two
directions. For J/J' > 1, this model is believed to describe the magnetic
properties of the mineral volborthite. In the classical limit, it exhibits two
kinds of ground states: a ferrimagnetic state for J/J' < 1/2 and a large
manifold of canted spin states for J/J' > 1/2. To include quantum effects
self-consistently, we investigate the Sp(N) symmetric generalisation of the
original SU(2) symmetric model in the large-N limit. In addition to the
dependence on the anisotropy, the Sp(N) symmetric model depends on a parameter
kappa that measures the importance of quantum effects. Our numerical
calculations reveal that in the kappa-J/J' plane, the system shows a rich phase
diagram containing a ferrimagnetic phase, an incommensurate phase, and a
decoupled chain phase, the latter two with short- and long-range order. We
corroborate these results by showing that the boundaries between the various
phases and several other features of the Sp(N) phase diagram can be determined
by analytical calculations. Finally, the application of a block-spin
perturbation expansion to the trimerised version of the original spin-1/2 model
leads us to suggest that in the limit of strong anisotropy, J/J' >> 1, the
ground state of the original model is a collinearly ordered antiferromagnet,
which is separated from the incommensurate state by a quantum phase transition.Comment: 21 pages, 22 figures. Final version, PRB in pres
Atomic quantum gases in Kagom\'e lattices
We demonstrate the possibility of creating and controlling an ideal and
\textit{trimerized} optical Kagom\'e lattice, and study the low temperature
physics of various atomic gases in such lattices. In the trimerized Kagom\'e
lattice, a Bose gas exhibits a Mott transition with fractional filling factors,
whereas a spinless interacting Fermi gas at 2/3 filling behaves as a quantum
magnet on a triangular lattice. Finally, a Fermi-Fermi mixture at half filling
for both components represents a frustrated quantum antiferromagnet with a
resonating-valence-bond ground state and quantum spin liquid behavior dominated
by continuous spectrum of singlet and triplet excitations. We discuss the
method of preparing and observing such quantum spin liquid employing molecular
Bose condensates.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure. Missing affiliations adde
Finite-temperature ordering in a two-dimensional highly frustrated spin model
We investigate the classical counterpart of an effective Hamiltonian for a
strongly trimerized kagome lattice. Although the Hamiltonian only has a
discrete symmetry, the classical groundstate manifold has a continuous global
rotational symmetry. Two cases should be distinguished for the sign of the
exchange constant. In one case, the groundstate has a 120^\circ spin structure.
To determine the transition temperature, we perform Monte-Carlo simulations and
measure specific heat, the order parameter as well as the associated Binder
cumulant. In the other case, the classical groundstates are macroscopically
degenerate. A thermal order-by-disorder mechanism is predicted to select
another 120^\circ spin-structure. A finite but very small transition
temperature is detected by Monte-Carlo simulations using the exchange method.Comment: 11 pages including 9 figures, uses IOP style files; to appear in J.
Phys.: Condensed Matter (proceedings of HFM2006
The Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a triangular lattice: topological excitations
We study the topological defects in the classical Heisenberg antiferromagnet
in two dimensions on a triangular lattice (HAFT). While the topological
analysis of the order parameter space indicates that the defects are of
type, consideration of the energy leads us to a description of the low--energy
stationary points of the action in terms of vortices, as in the planar XY
model. Starting with the continuum description of the HAFT, we show
analytically that its partition function can be reduced to that of a
2--dimensional Coulomb gas with logarithmic interaction. Thus, at low
temperatures, the correlation length is determined by the spinwaves, while at
higher temperatures we expect a crossover to a Kosterlitz--Thouless type
behaviour. The results of recent Monte Carlo calculations of the correlation
length are consistent with such a crossover.Comment: 9 pages, revtex, preprint: ITP-UH 03/9
Atomic Fermi gas in the trimerized Kagom\'e lattice at the filling 2/3
We study low temperature properties of an atomic spinless interacting Fermi
gas in the trimerized Kagom\'e lattice for the case of two fermions per trimer.
The system is described by a quantum spin 1/2 model on the triangular lattice
with couplings depending on bonds directions. Using exact diagonalizations we
show that the system exhibits non-standard properties of a {\it quantum
spin-liquid crystal}, combining a planar antiferromagnetic order with an
exceptionally large number of low energy excitations.Comment: 4 pages & 4 figures + 2 tables, better version of Fig.
Scaling of the Hysteresis Loop in Two-dimensional Solidification
The first order phase transitions between a two-dimensional (2d) gas and the
2d solid of the first monolayer have been studied for the noble gases Ar, Kr
and Xe on a NaCl(100) surface in quasi-equilibrium with the three-dimensional
gas phase. Using linear temperature ramps, we show that the widths of the
hysteresis loops of these transitions as a function of the heating rate, r,
scales with a power law r^alpha with alpha between 0.4 and 0.5 depending on the
system. The hysteresis loops for different heating rates are similar. The
island area of the condensed layer was found to grow initially with a t^4 time
dependence. These results are in agreement with theory, which predicts alpha =
0.5 and hysteresis loop similarity.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, Revte
Order by disorder and phase transitions in a highly frustrated spin model on the triangular lattice
Frustration has proved to give rise to an extremely rich phenomenology in
both quantum and classical systems. The leading behavior of the system can
often be described by an effective model, where only the lowest-energy degrees
of freedom are considered. In this paper we study a system corresponding to the
strong trimerization limit of the spin 1/2 kagome antiferromagnet in a magnetic
field. It has been suggested that this system can be realized experimentally by
a gas of spinless fermions in an optical kagome lattice at 2/3 filling. We
investigate the low-energy behavior of both the spin 1/2 quantum version and
the classical limit of this system by applying various techniques. We study in
parallel both signs of the coupling constant J since the two cases display
qualitative differences. One of the main peculiarities of the J>0 case is that,
at the classical level, there is an exponentially large manifold of
lowest-energy configurations. This renders the thermodynamics of the system
quite exotic and interesting in this case. For both cases, J>0 and J<0, a
finite-temperature phase transition with a breaking of the discrete dihedral
symmetry group D_6 of the model is present. For J<0, we find a transition
temperature T^<_c/|J| = 1.566 +/- 0.005, i.e., of order unity, as expected. We
then analyze the nature of the transition in this case. While we find no
evidence for a discontinuous transition, the interpretation as a continuous
phase transition yields very unusual critical exponents violating the
hyperscaling relation. By contrast, in the case J>0 the transition occurs at an
extremely low temperature, T^>_c ~= 0.0125 J. Presumably this low transition
temperature is connected with the fact that the low-temperature ordered state
of the system is established by an order-by-disorder mechanism in this case.Comment: 18 pages including 18 figures and 1 table; replaced in order to match
published version, most important change: added appendix with derivation of
Hamiltonian from spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on trimerized kagome lattic
Monte Carlo Simulation of the Heisenberg Antiferromagnet on a Triangular Lattice: Topological Excitations
We have simulated the classical Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a triangular
lattice using a local Monte Carlo algorithm. The behavior of the correlation
length , the susceptibility at the ordering wavevector , and
the spin stiffness clearly reflects the existence of two temperature
regimes -- a high temperature regime , in which the disordering
effect of vortices is dominant, and a low temperature regime ,
where correlations are controlled by small amplitude spin fluctuations. As has
previously been shown, in the last regime, the behavior of the above quantities
agrees well with the predictions of a renormalization group treatment of the
appropriate nonlinear sigma model. For , a satisfactory fit of the
data is achieved, if the temperature dependence of and is
assumed to be of the form predicted by the Kosterlitz--Thouless theory.
Surprisingly, the crossover between the two regimes appears to happen in a very
narrow temperature interval around .Comment: 13 pages, 8 Postscript figure
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