Absence of Spin Liquid in the Hubbard model on the Honeycomb Lattice

Abstract

The possible emergence of a spin liquid phase in the half-filled Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice; a simple model of graphene, is studied using the variational cluster approximation. We found that the critical interaction strength of a magnetic transition is slightly lower than that of the non-magnetic metal-to-insulator transition. Thus a semi-metallic state becomes a magnetic insulator as the interaction strength increases and a non-magnetic insulating state does not occur. Therefore a spin liquid state characterized by an insulating state without long range order, is not realized in this system.