Quantum phases in the frustrated Heisenberg model on the bilayer honeycomb lattice

Abstract

We use a combination of analytical and numerical techniques to study the phase diagram of the frustrated Heisenberg model on the bilayer honeycomb lattice. Using the Schwinger-boson description of the spin operators followed by a mean-field decoupling, the magnetic phase diagram is studied as a function of the frustration coupling J2 and the interlayer coupling J⊥. The presence of both magnetically ordered and disordered phases is investigated by means of the evaluation of ground-state energy, spin gap, local magnetization, and spin-spin correlations. We observe a phase with a spin gap and short-range Néel correlations that survives for nonzero next-nearest-neighbor interaction and interlayer coupling. Furthermore, we detect signatures of a reentrant behavior in the melting of the Néel phase and symmetry restoring when the system undergoes a transition from an on-layer nematic valence-bond crystal phase to an interlayer valence-bond crystal phase. We complement our work with exact diagonalization on small clusters and dimer-series expansion calculations, together with a linear spin-wave approach to study the phase diagram as a function of the spin S, the frustration, and the interlayer couplings.