Magnetic structures of electron systems on the extended spatially completely anisotropic triangular lattice near quantum critical points

TL;DR

This study investigates magnetic structures of electron systems on an extended anisotropic triangular lattice, revealing stable phases near quantum critical points and behaviors not captured by localized spin models.

Contribution

It introduces a mean-field analysis of magnetic phases on an anisotropic triangular lattice, highlighting the stability of uudd and Neel states and their behavior near quantum critical points.

Findings

uudd phases are stable with large anisotropy imbalance

phase boundaries terminate at a triple point with first-order transitions

transitions from antiferromagnetic to paramagnetic phases vary in order

Abstract

We examine magnetic structures of electron systems on an extended triangular lattice that consists of two types of bond triangles with electron transfer energies t_l and t'_l (l = 1, 2, and 3), respectively. We examine the ground state in the mean-field theory when t_1 = t'_1, focusing on collinear states with two sublattices. It is shown that when the imbalance of the spatial anisotropies of the two triangles is large, up-up-down-down (uudd) phases are stable, and the most likely ground states of the lambda-(BETS)_2FeCl_4 system are the Neel state with the modulation vector (\pi/c,\pi/a) and a uudd state, where c = a_1 = a'_1 and a = (a_2+a'_2)/2, with a_1, a_1', a_2, and a_2' being the lattice constants of the bonds with t_1, t'_1, t_2, and t'_2, respectively. These results are consistent with those from the classical spin system. In addition, this study reveals behaviors near the quantum critical point, which cannot be reproduced in the localized spin model. As the imbalance of the spatial anisotropies increases, the U_c of the Neel state increases, and that of the uudd state decreases. In the phase diagrams containing areas of the paramagnetic state, the Neel state with (\pi/c,\pi/a), and a uudd state, their boundaries terminate at a triple point, near which all the transitions are of the first order. The phase boundary between the antiferromagnetic phases does not depend on U, and the transition is of the first order everywhere on the boundary. By contrast, the transitions from the two antiferromagnetic phases to the paramagnetic phase are of the second order, unless the system is close to the triple point.