Frustrated Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the honeycomb lattice with spin quantum number $s \geq 1$

TL;DR

This study investigates the ground-state phase diagram of frustrated spin-$s$ Heisenberg antiferromagnets on the honeycomb lattice for various spin quantum numbers, revealing how quantum effects influence phase transitions and ordering patterns.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed coupled cluster analysis of the phase diagram for spins $s=1, 3/2, 2, 5/2$, highlighting differences from the classical case and between different spin values.

Findings

For $s o \infty$, the phase diagram resembles the classical one with a direct transition.

For $s=1$, the transition splits into two, with distinct Néel and striped phases.

PVBC order is absent or very limited in the $s=1$ case.

Abstract

The ground-state (GS) phase diagram of the frustrated spin-$s$ $J_{1}$--$J_{2}$--$J_{3}$ Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the honeycomb lattice is studied using the coupled cluster method, for spin quantum numbers $s=1,\,\frac{3}{2},\,2\,,\frac{5}{2}$. We study the case $J_{3}=J_{2}=\kappa J_{1}$, in the range $0 \leq \kappa \leq 1$, which includes the point of maximum classical ($s \to \infty$) frustration, viz., the classical critical point at $\kappa_{{\rm cl}}=\frac{1}{2}$, separating the N\'{e}el phase for $\kappa < \kappa_{{\rm cl}}$ and the collinear striped AFM phase for $\kappa > \kappa_{{\rm cl}}$. Results are presented for the GS energy, magnetic order parameter and plaquette valence-bond crystal (PVBC) susceptibility. For all spins $s \geq \frac{3}{2}$ we find a quantum phase diagram very similar to the classical one, with a direct first-order transition between the two collinear AFM states at a value $\kappa_{c}(s)$ which is slightly greater than $\kappa_{{\rm cl}}$ [e.g., $\kappa_{c}(\frac{3}{2}) \approx 0.53(1)$] and which approaches it monotonically as $s \to \infty$. By contrast, for the case $s=1$ the transition is split into two such that the stable GS phases are ones with N\'{e}el AFM order for $\kappa < \kappa_{c_{1}} = 0.485(5)$ and with striped AFM order for $\kappa > \kappa_{c_{2}} = 0.528(5)$, just as in the case $s=\frac{1}{2}$ (for which $\kappa_{c_{1}} \approx 0.47$ and $\kappa_{c_{2}} \approx 0.60$). For both the $s=\frac{1}{2}$ and $s=1$ models the transition at $\kappa_{c_{2}}$ appears to be of first-order type, while that at $\kappa_{c_{1}}$ appears to be continuous. However, whereas in the $s=\frac{1}{2}$ case the intermediate phase appears to have PVBC order over the entire range $\kappa_{c_{1}} < \kappa < \kappa_{c_{2}}$, in the $s=1$ case PVBC ordering either exists only over a very small part of the region or, more likely, is absent everywhere.