Resonating-Valence-Bond Ground-state of CaV$_4$O$_9$ by the Gutzwiller-projected Schwinger-boson method

Abstract

An antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model on a 1/5-depleted two-dimensional square-lattice, a model of CaV$_4$O$_9$, is investigated by variational Monte Carlo simulation. A prototype of a trial wave function is made by projecting out the doubly occupied states from the Schwinger-boson mean-field solution. Then variational Monte Carlo simulation is performed up to $40 \times 40 $ sites(including $320$ vacant sites). The optimized state has the lowest energy, $-0.5510J$, ever reported. For this state energies of a dimer bond and a plaquette bond, staggered magnetization, static structure factor, and excitation spectrum are calculated. It is shown that the N\'eel order survives and there is no gap at isotropic coupling.