Topological Paramagnetism in Frustrated Spin-One Mott Insulators

TL;DR

This paper explores the realization of 3D topological paramagnets in frustrated spin-1 quantum magnets, proposing physical models, exactly solvable examples, and slave particle methods to understand their properties and phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework for realizing 3D topological paramagnets in spin-1 systems using loop wavefunctions and slave particle techniques, advancing the understanding of topological phases in magnetic materials.

Findings

Loop gas models illustrate topological linking phases.

Slave particle mean field states naturally lead to topological paramagnets.

Condensation of magnetic monopoles in spin liquids can produce topological paramagnets.

Abstract

Time reversal protected three dimensional (3D) topological paramagnets are magnetic analogs of the celebrated 3D topological insulators. Such paramagnets have a bulk gap, no exotic bulk excitations, but non-trivial surface states protected by symmetry. We propose that frustrated spin-1 quantum magnets are a natural setting for realising such states in 3D. We describe a physical picture of the ground state wavefunction for such a spin-1 topological paramagnet in terms of loops of fluctuating Haldane chains with non-trivial linking phases. We illustrate some aspects of such loop gases with simple exactly solvable models. We also show how 3D topological paramagnets can be very naturally accessed within a slave particle description of a spin-1 magnet. Specifically we construct slave particle mean field states which are naturally driven into the topological paramagnet upon including fluctuations. We propose bulk projected wave functions for the topological paramagnet based on this slave particle description. An alternate slave particle construction leads to a stable U(1) quantum spin liquid from which a topological paramagnet may be accessed by condensing the emergent magnetic monopole excitation of the spin liquid.