Numerical study of magnetization plateaux in the spin-1/2 kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet

TL;DR

This paper investigates magnetization plateaux in the spin-1/2 kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet, identifying specific plateau states through localized magnon eigenstates and confirming findings with large-scale exact diagonalization.

Contribution

It introduces a method to describe plateau states using localized magnon eigenstates and confirms their existence with extensive numerical simulations.

Findings

Identification of magnetization plateaux at m=1/3, 5/9, 7/9

Use of localized magnon eigenstates to describe plateau states

Confirmation of results with large-scale exact diagonalization up to 63 sites

Abstract

We clarify the existence of several magnetization plateaux for the kagome $S=1/2$ antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model in a magnetic field. Using approximate or exact localized magnon eigenstates, we are able to describe in a similar manner the plateau states that occur for magnetization per site $m=1/3$, $5/9$, and $7/9$ of the saturation value. These results are confirmed using large-scale Exact Diagonalization on lattices up to 63 sites.