Competing spin liquid phases in the S=1/2 Heisenberg model on the Kagome lattice

Abstract

The properties of ground state of spin-1/2 kagome antiferromagnetic Heisenberg (KAFH) model have attracted considerable interest in the past few decades, and recent numerical simulations reported a spin liquid phase. The nature of the spin liquid phase remains unclear. For instance, the interplay between symmetries and Z2 topological order leads to different types of Z2 spin liquid phases. In this paper, we develop a numerical simulation method based on symmetric projected entangled-pair states (PEPS), which is generally applicable to strongly correlated model systems in two spatial dimensions. We then apply this method to study the nature of the ground state of the KAFH model. Our results are consistent with that the ground state is a U(1) Dirac spin liquid rather than a Z2 spin liquid.