Nature of chiral spin liquids on the kagome lattice

TL;DR

This paper studies chiral spin liquids on the kagome lattice using a wave function approach, revealing their stability, connection to classical transitions, and high overlap with ground states in extended Heisenberg models.

Contribution

It introduces a Gutzwiller projected wave function method to analyze chiral spin liquids and links their emergence to classical phase transition lines.

Findings

High overlap of wave functions with ground states

Chiral spin liquids linked to classical transition lines

Stability of chiral spin liquids in extended models

Abstract

We investigate the stability and the nature of the chiral spin liquids which were recently uncovered in extended Heisenberg models on the kagome lattice. Using a Gutzwiller projected wave function approach -- i.e. a parton construction -- we obtain large overlaps with ground states of these extended Heisenberg models. We further suggest that the appearance of the chiral spin liquid in the time-reversal invariant case is linked to a classical transition line between two magnetically ordered phases.