Absence of magnetic order for the spin-half Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the star lattice

Original · EN

We study the ground-state properties of the spin-half Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the two-dimensional star lattice by spin-wave theory, exact diagonalization and a variational mean-field approach. We find evidence that the star lattice is (besides the lattice) a second candidate among the 11 uniform Archimedean lattices where quantum fluctuations in combination with frustration lead to a quantum paramagnetic ground state. Although the classical ground state of the Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the star exhibits a huge non-trivial degeneracy like on the lattice, its quantum ground state is most likely dimerized with a gap to all excitations. Finally, we find several candidates for plateaux in the magnetization curve as well as a macroscopic magnetization jump to saturation due to independent localized magnon states.