English

Fractionalization in Spin Liquid Mott Insulators: Vison Wavefunctions and Gaps

Strongly Correlated Electrons 2013-05-29 v2 Superconductivity

Abstract

We study fractionalization in a spin-liquid Mott insulator defined by a Gutzwiller projected BCS state |0> at half-filling. We construct a trial vison (Z2 vortex) state |V> by projecting an hc/2e vortex and determine when it is orthogonal to |0>. Using a combination of analytical arguments and Monte Carlo calculations we show that generically the spin-liquid is Z2 fractionalized. For microscopic parameters appropriate for high Tc cuprates, we estimate that the vison gap Ev << J, consistent with recent experimental bounds, due to proximity to the bipartite symmetric point where Ev = 0.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0303360,
  title  = {Fractionalization in Spin Liquid Mott Insulators: Vison Wavefunctions and Gaps},
  author = {Arun Paramekanti and Mohit Randeria and Nandini Trivedi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0303360},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

4 pages; 3 figures (one figure modified to show asymptotic exponential decay of overlaps in fractionalized phase)