Vector chirality and inhomogeneous magnetization in frustrated spin tubes in high magnetic fields

TL;DR

This paper investigates the low-energy behavior of frustrated three-leg antiferromagnetic spin tubes near the critical magnetic field, revealing phases with vector chiral order, inhomogeneous magnetization, and transitions to symmetric two-component TLL states.

Contribution

It introduces an effective field theory analysis showing the emergence of vector chiral and inhomogeneous phases, and predicts symmetry restoration at strong interchain coupling.

Findings

Identification of vector chiral order and inhomogeneous magnetization phases.

Spontaneous breaking of Z_2 parity symmetry in intermediate coupling regimes.

Restoration of all symmetries and two-component TLL emergence at strong coupling.

Abstract

The low-energy physics of three-leg frustrated antiferromagnetic spin-S tubes in the vicinity of the upper critical field are studied. Utilizing the effective field theory based on the spin-wave approximation, we argue that in the intermediate-interchain-coupling regime, the ground state exhibits a vector chiral order or an inhomogeneous magnetization for the interchain (rung) direction and the low-energy excitations are described by a one-component Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL). In both chiral and inhomogeneous phases, the Z_2 parity symmetry along the rung direction is spontaneously broken. It is also predicted that a two-component TLL appears and all the symmetries are restored in the strong-rung-coupling case.