Frustrated spin model as a hard-sphere liquid

TL;DR

This paper models a frustrated antiferromagnetic Ising system using topological kinks as hard-sphere liquids, providing insights into its ground states, entropy, and quantum dynamics through both theoretical and numerical analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel kink-based hard-sphere liquid framework to understand the frustrated Ising model's properties and quantum effects.

Findings

Kinks serve as natural degrees of freedom in the model.

The ground states exhibit spin ordering with extensive zero-temperature entropy.

Quantum spin dynamics influence the behavior of the kink liquid.

Abstract

We show that one-dimensional topological objects (kinks) are natural degrees of freedom for an antiferromagnetic Ising model on a triangular lattice. Its ground states and the coexistence of spin ordering with an extensive zero-temperature entropy can be easily understood in terms of kinks forming a hard-sphere liquid. Using this picture we explain effects of quantum spin dynamics on that frustrated model, which we also study numerically.