English

Evidence for Deconfined Magnetic Order in the Kitaev-$J_3$ Model

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2026-07-02 v1

Abstract

We investigate the Kitaev-J3J_3 honeycomb model using variational Monte Carlo calculations combined with a vison-quasiparticle analysis of the parent Kitaev spin liquid (KSL). We provide evidence for deconfined magnetic phases in which zigzag or antiferromagnetic order coexists with remnant Z2\mathbb{Z}_2 topological structure inherited from the KSL. The optimized variational wave functions retain multiple linearly independent topological sectors on a torus, whereas those of conventional ordered phases collapse to a single sector. The vison-quasiparticle analysis shows that magnetic order naturally arises from vison-pair condensation while single visons remain gapped, yielding a microscopic mechanism for magnetic ordering without immediate confinement. The resulting phases further host gapless spinons with multiple Majorana cones, offering a possible microscopic scenario for the anomalous low-temperature longitudinal thermal transport reported in magnetically ordered Kitaev materials such as Na2_2Co2_2TeO6_6. Our results reveal a microscopic route to fractionalized magnetism beyond the conventional dichotomy between magnetic order and spin-liquid behavior.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.01815,
  title  = {Evidence for Deconfined Magnetic Order in the Kitaev-$J_3$ Model},
  author = {Jiucai Wang and Chuan Chen},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.01815},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

4.5 pages + Supplementary Material, 4 figures