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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Field-induced chiral soliton phase in the Kitaev spin chain

Erik S. Sørensen1,*, Jacob Gordon2, Jonathon Riddell1, Tianyi Wang2, and Hae-Young Kee2,3,†

  • 1Department of Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M1
  • 2Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A7
  • 3Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, CIFAR Program in Quantum Materials, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1M1

  • *sorensen@mcmaster.ca
  • †hykee@physics.utoronto.ca
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Phys. Rev. Research 5, L012027 – Published 27 February, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.5.L012027

Abstract

The bond-dependent Ising interaction present in the Kitaev model has attracted considerable attention. The appearance of an unexpected intermediate phase under a magnetic field is particularly intriguing, and one may wonder if a similar phase occurs in the Kitaev spin chain with alternating x- and y-bond Ising interactions. Previous studies have focused on a transverse field hz and reported a direct transition to the polarized state. Here, we investigate phases with an arbitrary angle of two longitudinal fields, hx and hy. For a magnetic field applied along the diagonal, hx=hy, the chain remains gapless up to a critical field hxyc1. Surprisingly, above hxyc1 it enters an unusual intermediate phase before reaching the polarized state at hxyc2. This phase is characterized by a staggered vector chirality and for periodic boundary conditions, a twofold degeneracy with a finite gap. For open boundary systems the ground state exhibits a single soliton, lowering the energy, and in-gap excitations. However, the corresponding antisoliton raises the energy sufficiently that a gap appears for soliton and antisoliton pairs in periodic systems. An intuitive variational picture is developed describing the soliton phase. A phase descending from the intermediate field phase is also identified in the two-leg Kitaev ladder.

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Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Research 5, L012027– Published 27 February, 2023
  • Received 12 September 2022
  • Accepted 6 February 2023
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