Trimerized ground state of the spin-1 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the kagome lattice

TL;DR

This paper investigates the ground state and phase diagram of the spin-1 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the kagome lattice, revealing a spontaneously trimerized state and a spin gap through advanced numerical methods.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the ground state is a spontaneously trimerized phase at the SU(3) point, persisting at the Heisenberg point, contrasting previous theories.

Findings

Ground state energy per site: -1.410(2)

Presence of a spin gap

Spontaneous trimerization persists at the Heisenberg point

Abstract

We study the phase diagram of the spin-1 quantum bilinear-biquadratic antiferromagnet on the kagome lattice using exact diagonalization and the density matrix renormalization group algorithm. The SU(3)-symmetric point of this model Hamiltonian is a spontaneously trimerized state whose qualitative nature persists even at the Heisenberg point, a finding that contrasts previous proposals. We report the ground state energy per site of the Heisenberg model to be -1.410(2) and establish the presence of a spin gap.