Chiral spin liquid and emergent anyons in a Kagome lattice Mott insulator

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • B. Bauer - , Microsoft Research (Author)
  • L. Cincio - , Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (Author)
  • B. P. Keller - , University of California at Santa Barbara (Author)
  • M. Dolfi - , ETH Zurich (Author)
  • G. Vidal - , Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (Author)
  • S. Trebst - , University of Cologne (Author)
  • A. W.W. Ludwig - , University of California at Santa Barbara (Author)

Abstract

Topological phases in frustrated quantum spin systems have fascinated researchers for decades. One of the earliest proposals for such a phase was the chiral spin liquid, a bosonic analogue of the fractional quantum Hall effect, put forward by Kalmeyer and Laughlin in 1987. Elusive for many years, recent times have finally seen this phase realized in various models, which, however, remain somewhat artificial. Here we take an important step towards the goal of finding a chiral spin liquid in nature by examining a physically motivated model for a Mott insulator on the Kagome lattice with broken time-reversal symmetry. We discuss the emergent phase from a network model perspective and present an unambiguous numerical identification and characterization of its universal topological properties, including ground-state degeneracy, edge physics and anyonic bulk excitations, by using a variety of powerful numerical probes, including the entanglement spectrum and modular transformations.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number5137
JournalNature communications
Volume5
Publication statusPublished - 2014
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

External IDs

WOS 000343980700001
Scopus 84910641891

Keywords