Projected-wave-function study of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the Kagomé lattice.
We perform a Gutzwiller projected-wave-function study for the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the Kagomé lattice to compare energies of several spin-liquid states. The result indicates that a U(1)-Dirac spin-liquid state has the lowest energy. Furthermore, even without variational parameters, the energy turns out to be very close to that found by exact diagonalization. We show that such a U(1)-Dirac state represents a quantum phase whose low-energy physics is governed by four flavors of two-component Dirac fermions coupled to a U(1) gauge field. These results are discussed in the context of recent experiments on ZnCu(3)(OH)(6)Cl(2).
Ran
Ying
Y
Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Hermele
Michael
M
Lee
Patrick A
PA
Wen
Xiao-Gang
XG