We derive the spin Hamiltonian for the quantum spin liquid Na4Ir3O8, and then
estimate the direct and superexchange contributions between near neighbor
iridium ions using a tight binding parametrization of the electronic structure.
We find a magnitude of the exchange interaction comparable to experiment for a
reasonable value of the on-site Coulomb repulsion. For one of the two tight
binding parametrizations we have studied, the direct exchange term, which is
isotropic, dominates the total exchange. This provides support for those
theories proposed to describe this novel quantum spin liquid that assume an
isotropic Heisenberg model.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure