Symmetry analysis of bond-alternating Kitaev spin chains and ladders

TL;DR

This paper conducts a detailed symmetry analysis of bond-alternating Kitaev spin chains and ladders, revealing symmetry breaking patterns and dimerization behaviors crucial for understanding magnetic phases.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive symmetry classification for various generalized Kitaev models with bond alternations, including new insights into symmetry breaking and dimerization.

Findings

Identified symmetry breaking patterns in bond-alternating Kitaev-Gamma chains

Determined dimerization order parameters for spontaneous dimerizations

Classified magnetic phases based on symmetry analysis

Abstract

In this work, we analyze the nonsymmorphic symmetry group structures for a variety of generalized Kitaev spin chains and ladders with bond alternations, including Kitaev-Gamma chain, Kitaev-Heisenberg-Gamma chain, beyond nearest neighbor interactions, and two-leg spin ladders. The symmetry analysis is applied to determine the symmetry breaking patterns of several magnetically ordered phases in the bond-alternating Kitaev-Gamma spin chains, as well as the dimerization order parameters for spontaneous dimerizations. Our work is useful in understanding the magnetic phases in related models and may provide guidance for the symmetry classifications of mean field solutions in further investigations.