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A quantum dipolar spin liquid

Nature Physics volumeĀ 14,Ā pages 405ā€“410 (2018)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 21 March 2018

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Abstract

Quantum spin liquids are a class of magnetic ground states reliant on non-local entanglement. Motivated by recent advances in the control of ultracold polar molecules and the development of dipolar quantum materials, we show that dipolar interactions between Sā€‰=ā€‰1/2 moments stabilize spin liquids on the triangular and kagome lattices. In the latter case, the moments spontaneously break time-reversal, forming a chiral spin liquid with robust edge modes and emergent semions. We propose a simple route toward synthesizing a dipolar Heisenberg antiferromagnet from lattice-trapped polar molecules using only a single pair of rotational states and a constant electric field.

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Fig. 1: Phase diagram of the dipolar Heisenberg model.
Fig. 2: XXZ anisotropy as a function of electric field.
Fig. 3: Numerical signatures of spin liquid behaviour and phase transitions.
Fig. 4: Entanglement spectra.

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  • 21 March 2018

    In the version of this Article originally published, the title for reference 11 was incorrect, and should have read ā€˜Influence of the range of interactions in thin magnetic structuresā€™. This has been corrected in all versions of the Article.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the insights of and discussions with B. Lev, A. Gorshkov, A. M. Rey, M. Lukin, C. Laumann, J. Moore, R. Thomale, J. Ye and M. Zwierlein. This work was supported by the AFOSR MURI grant FA9550-14-1-0035, the NSF (grant no. PHY-1654740), the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science, the LDRD Program of LBNL under US DOE Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, and the Simons Investigators programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physics Department, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    N. Y. Yao,Ā D. M. Stamper-KurnĀ &Ā A. Vishwanath

  2. Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    N. Y. Yao

  3. Station Q, Microsoft Research, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    M. P. Zaletel

  4. Physics Department, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    M. P. Zaletel

  5. Physics Department, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    A. Vishwanath

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Yao, N.Y., Zaletel, M.P., Stamper-Kurn, D.M. et al. A quantum dipolar spin liquid. Nature Phys 14, 405ā€“410 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-017-0030-7

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