Ebook: Dynamics of a Quantum Spin Liquid

Nominated by the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, as an outstanding Thesis
Presents for the first time an exact calculation for experimental signatures of fractionalized quasiparticles for a two-dimensional strongly-correlated topological magnetic phase
Relevant to theorists and experimentalists alike with connections to other fields in condensed matter and many-body physics
Technical advances covered in detail, enabling interested researchers to benefit from the methodological progress underpinning the presented results

This thesis presents an exact theoretical study of dynamical correlation functions in different phases of a two-dimensional quantum spin liquid. By calculating the dynamical spin structure factor and the Raman scattering cross section, this thesis shows that there are salient signatures—qualitative and quantitative—of the Majorana fermions and the gauge fluxes emerging as effective degrees of freedom in the exactly solvable Kitaev honeycomb lattice model. The model is a representative of a class of spin liquids with Majorana fermions coupled to Z2 gauge fields. The qualitative features of the response functions should therefore be characteristic for this broad class of topological states.

Topics
Strongly Correlated Systems, Superconductivity
Magnetism, Magnetic Materials
Quantum Field Theories, String Theory