Stabilization of the chiral phase of the SU($6m$) Heisenberg model on the honeycomb lattice with $m$ particles per site for $m$ larger than 1

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the chiral phase of the SU(6m) Heisenberg model on a honeycomb lattice becomes stable for m≥2, bridging the gap between known limits and suggesting experimental realizations.

Contribution

The study shows that the chiral order in the SU(6m) Heisenberg model is stabilized for m≥2 using variational Monte Carlo, extending understanding from the m=1 and large m limits.

Findings

Chiral order appears for m≥2 in the SU(6m) model.

Ground state at m=1 is a plaquette singlet, not chiral.

Chiral phase is stable for intermediate m values.

Abstract

We show that, when $N$ is a multiple of 6 ($N=6m$, $m$ integer), the \SU{N} Heisenberg model on the honeycomb lattice with $m$ particles per site has a clear tendency toward chiral order as soon as $m\geq 2$. This conclusion has been reached by a systematic variational Monte Carlo investigation of Gutzwiller projected wave-functions as a function of $m$ between the case of one particle per site ($m=1$), for which the ground state has recently been shown to be in a plaquette singlet state, and the $m\rightarrow \infty$ limit, where a mean-field approach has established that the ground state has chiral order. This demonstrates that the chiral phase can indeed be stabilized for not too large values of $m$, opening the way to its experimental realisations in other lattices.