Nature of quantum spin liquids of the S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the triangular lattice: A parallel DMRG study

Abstract

We study the ground-state properties of the quantum spin liquid (QSL) phases of the spin-$1/2$ antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on the triangular lattice with nearest- ($J_1$), next-nearest- ($J_2$), and third-neighbor ($J_3$) interactions by using density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. By combining parallel DMRG with $SU(2)$ spin rotational symmetry, we are able to obtain accurate results on large cylinders with length up to $L_x=48$ and circumference $L_y=6 - 12$. Our results suggest that the QSL phase of the $J_1$-$J_2$ Heisenberg model is gapped which is characterized by the absence of gapless mode, short-range spin-spin and dimer-dimer correlations. In the presence of $J_3$ interaction, we find that a new critical QSL with a single gapless mode emerges. While both spin-spin and scalar chiral-chiral correlations are short-ranged, dimer-dimer correlations are quasi-long-ranged which decays as a power-law at long distances.