# Physics of the Kitaev model: fractionalization, dynamical correlations, and material connections

## TL;DR

This paper reviews the physics of the exactly solvable Kitaev model, highlighting fractionalization, dynamical correlations, and material relevance, providing insights into quantum spin liquids and their experimental detection challenges.

## Contribution

It offers a comprehensive overview of the Kitaev model's rich physics, including fractionalization and material connections, which advances understanding of quantum spin liquids.

## Key findings

- Kitaev model exhibits 2D and 3D fractionalization.
- Dynamical correlations are characterized at finite temperatures.
- Relevance of Kitaev physics to real materials like Iridates and RuCl3.

## Abstract

Quantum spin liquids have fascinated condensed matter physicists for decades because of their unusual properties such as spin fractionalization and long-range entanglement. Unlike conventional symmetry breaking the topological order underlying quantum spin liquids is hard to detect experimentally. Even theoretical models are scarce for which the ground state is established to be a quantum spin liquid. The Kitaev honeycomb model and its generalizations to other tri-coordinated lattices are chief counterexamples --- they are exactly solvable, harbor a variety of quantum spin liquid phases, and are also relevant for certain transition metal compounds including the polymorphs of (Na,Li)$_2$IrO$_3$ Iridates and RuCl$_3$. In this review, we give an overview of the rich physics of the Kitaev model, including 2D and 3D fractionalization as well as dynamical correlations and behavior at finite temperatures. We discuss the different materials, and argue how the Kitaev model physics can be relevant even though most materials show magnetic ordering at low temperatures.