Coexistence of vector chiral order and Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid in the frustrated three-leg spin tube in a magnetic field

Abstract

The frustrated three-leg antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 tube with a weak interchain coupling in a magnetic field is investigated by means of Abelian bosonization techniques. It is clearly shown that a vector chiral order and a one-component Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid coexist in a wide magnetic-field region from a state with a small magnetization to a nearly saturated one. The chiral order is predicted to still survive in the intermediate plateau state. We further predict that (even) when the strength of one bond in the three rung couplings is decreased (increased), an Ising type quantum phase transition takes place and the chirality vanishes (no singular phenomena occur and the chiral order is maintained). Even without magnetic fields, the chiral order would also be present, if the spin tube possess easy-plane anisotropy.