Low-Lying Excited States of Quantum Antiferromagnets on a Triangular Lattice

TL;DR

This paper investigates the low-energy states of quantum antiferromagnets on a triangular lattice to understand symmetry breaking at zero temperature, combining analytical approximations with numerical studies to provide evidence of spontaneous symmetry breaking.

Contribution

It introduces an approximation separating sublattice magnetization and chirality degrees of freedom, and demonstrates their role in symmetry breaking through analytical and numerical methods.

Findings

Low-lying states are well described by the proposed approximation.

Conditions for symmetry breaking are satisfied in the studied models.

Numerical results support the occurrence of spontaneous symmetry breaking.

Abstract

We study low-lying states of the XY and Heisenberg antiferromagnets on a triangular lattice to clarify whether spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs at $T=0$ in the thermodynamic limit. Approximate forms of low-lying states are proposed, in which degrees of freedom of the sublattice magnetization and of the chirality are separated. It is shown that low-lying states can be accurately described with the present approximation. It was argued that low-lying states play an important role in symmetry breaking. With help of this approximation, we discuss the contribution of low-lying states to symmetry breaking of two types, namely creation of the spontaneous sublattice magnetization and the spontaneous chirality. Furthermore, to show an evidence for the occurrence of the symmetry breaking, we numerically study the low-lying states of finite systems of the XY and Heisenberg antiferromagnets. It is found that the necessary conditions for the symmetry breaking to occur are satisfied in these models.