Quantum Coulomb Liquids of Different Rank in the Breathing Pyrochlore Antiferromagnet

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the realization of higher-rank U(1) Coulomb liquids in a quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the breathing pyrochlore lattice, revealing complex emergent gauge phenomena and quantum disordered phases.

Contribution

It provides the first controlled 3D quantum model showing multiple emergent gauge theories of different ranks within a single Hamiltonian.

Findings

Tuning breathing asymmetry stabilizes rank-1 and rank-2 Coulomb liquids.

Characteristic pinch-point morphologies distinguish different gauge ranks.

Quantum fluctuations induce incommensurate spiral instability and quantum-disordered regimes.

Abstract

Emergent gauge fields and Coulomb liquids have long been central to the physics of frustrated pyrochlore magnets, yet their realization beyond conventional, i.e. rank-1 $U(1)$, spin ice and into fully quantum higher-rank regimes has remained elusive. Here we provide a controlled demonstration of this physics in the spin-$\tfrac{1}{2}$ quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the breathing pyrochlore lattice with symmetry-allowed Dzyaloshinskii--Moriya interactions, using the pseudofermion functional renormalization group. We show that tuning the breathing asymmetry stabilizes extended quantum analogues of both rank-1 and rank-2 $U(1)$ Coulomb liquids within a single microscopic model, directly distinguished by their characteristic pinch-point morphologies in momentum space. This provides the first controlled quantum realization in three dimensions where gauge theories of different rank emerge within a single microscopic spin Hamiltonian. In addition, quantum fluctuations qualitatively reshape the classical nearest-neighbor atlas of phases, causing an incommensurate spiral instability and an extended quantum-disordered regime without dipolar order, both absent from the classical model. Our results establish the breathing pyrochlore as a timely and experimentally relevant platform where higher-rank gauge constraints, conventional magnetic order, and fluctuation-driven quantum phases compete on equal footing, opening a direct route to diagnosing emergent gauge structure in three-dimensional quantum magnets.