2000 character limit reached
Dirac and Chiral Quantum Spin Liquids on the Honeycomb Lattice in a Magnetic Field (1709.07990v4)
Published 23 Sep 2017 in cond-mat.str-el, cond-mat.mtrl-sci, and cond-mat.supr-con
Abstract: Motivated by recent experimental observations in $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$, we study the $K$-$\Gamma$ model on the honeycomb lattice in an external magnetic field. By a slave-particle representation and Variational Monte Carlo calculations, we reproduce the phase transition from zigzag magnetic order to a field-induced disordered phase. The nature of this state depends crucially on the field orientation. For particular field directions in the honeycomb plane, we find a gapless Dirac spin liquid, in agreement with recent experiments on $\alpha$-RuCl$_3$. For a range of out-of-plane fields, we predict the existence of a Kalmeyer-Laughlin-type chiral spin liquid, which would show an integer-quantized thermal Hall effect.