Jordan-Wigner composite-fermion liquids in 2D quantum spin-ice

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel composite-fermion dual representation for 2D quantum spin-ice models, constructing spin-liquid states with unique symmetry properties and analyzing their emergent gauge structures and low-energy excitations.

Contribution

It develops a new composite-fermion framework for 2D quantum spin-ice, enabling the construction of symmetric spin-liquid states and analysis of their gauge and low-energy properties.

Findings

Constructed a time-reversal invariant Dirac spin liquid state with two massless nodes.

Identified a composite Fermi surface state with nesting instabilities.

Analyzed emergent U(1) x U(1) gauge structure with gapless photon modes.

Abstract

The Jordan-Wigner map in 2D is as an exact lattice regularization of the 2 pi-flux attachment to a hard-core boson (or spin-1/2) leading to a composite-fermion particle. When the spin-1/2 model obeys ice rules this map preserves locality, namely, local Rohkshar-Kivelson models of spins are mapped onto local models of Jordan-Wigner/composite-fermions. Using this composite-fermion dual representation of RK models, we construct spin-liquid states by projecting Slater determinants onto the subspaces of the ice rules. Interestingly, we find that these composite-fermions behave as ``dipolar" partons for which the projective implementations of symmetries are very different from standard ``point-like" partons. We construct interesting examples of composite-fermion liquid states that respect all microscopic symmetries of the RK model. In the six-vertex subspace, we constructed a time-reversal and particle-hole-invariant state featuring two massless Dirac nodes, which is a composite-fermion counterpart to the classic pi-flux state of Abrikosov-Schwinger fermions in the square lattice. This state is a good ground state candidate for a modified RK-like Hamiltonian of quantum spin-ice. In the dimer subspace, we construct a state fearturing a composite Fermi surface but with nesting instabilities towards ordered phases such as the columnar state. We have also analyzed the low energy emergent gauge structure. If one ignores confinement, the system would feature a U(1) x U(1) low energy gauge structure with two associated gapless photon modes, but with the composite fermion carrying gauge charge only for one photon and behaving as a gauge neutral dipole under the other. These states are examples of pseudo-scalar U(1) spin liquids where mirror and time-reversal symmetries act as particle-hole conjugations, and the emergent magnetic fields are even under such time-reversal or lattice mirror symmetries.