The J_1-J_2 antiferromagnet with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction on the square lattice: An exact diagonalization study

TL;DR

This study uses exact diagonalization to analyze how Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions affect the ground state and magnetic ordering of the J_1-J_2 antiferromagnet on a square lattice, revealing shifts in spin liquid regions and induced anisotropies.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the impact of DM interactions on the J_1-J_2 model's ground state using exact diagonalization methods.

Findings

DM interactions shift the spin liquid region

They induce anisotropic correlations in the ground state

Certain symmetries lead to a net ferromagnetic moment

Abstract

We examine the influence of an anisotropic interaction term of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) type on the groundstate ordering of the J_1-J_2 spin-1/2-Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the square lattice. For the DM term we consider several symmetries corresponding to different crystal structures. For the pure J_1-J_2 model there are strong indications for a quantum spin liquid in the region of 0.4 < J_2/J_1 < 0.65. We find that a DM interaction influences the breakdown of the conventional antiferromagnetic order by i) shifting the spin liquid region, ii) changing the isotropic character of the groundstate towards anisotropic correlations and iii) creating for certain symmetries a net ferromagnetic moment.