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    Intercalant-mediated Kitaev exchange in Ag3LiIr2O6
    (College Park, MD : APS, 2022) Yadav, Ravi; Reja, Sahinur; Ray, Rajyavardhan; van den Brink, Jeroen; Nishimoto, Satoshi; Yazyev, Oleg V.
    The recently synthesized Ag3LiIr2O6 has been proposed as a Kitaev magnet in proximity to the quantum spin liquid phase. We explore its microscopic Hamiltonian and magnetic ground state using many-body quantum chemistry methods and exact diagonalization techniques. Our calculations establish a dominant bond dependent ferromagnetic Kitaev exchange between Ir sites and find that the inclusion of Ag 4d orbitals in the configuration interaction calculations strikingly enhances the Kitaev exchange. Furthermore, using exact diagonalization of the nearest-neighbor fully anisotropic J−K−Γ Hamiltonian, we obtain the magnetic phase diagram as a function of further neighbor couplings. We find that the antiferromagnetic off-diagonal coupling stabilizes long range order, but the structure factor calculations suggest that the material is very close to the quantum spin liquid phase and the ordered state can easily collapse into a liquid by small perturbations such as structural distortion or bond disorder.
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    The vicinity of hyper-honeycomb β-Li2IrO3 to a three-dimensional Kitaev spin liquid state
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Katukuri, Vamshi M.; Yadav, Ravi; Hozoi, Liviu; Nishimoto, Satoshi; van den Brink, Jeroen
    Due to the combination of a substantial spin-orbit coupling and correlation effects, iridium oxides hold a prominent place in the search for novel quantum states of matter, including, e.g., Kitaev spin liquids and topological Weyl states. We establish the promise of the very recently synthesized hyper-honeycomb iridate β-Li2IrO3 in this regard. A detailed theoretical analysis reveals the presence of large ferromagnetic first-neighbor Kitaev interactions, while a second-neighbor antiferromagnetic Heisenberg exchange drives the ground state from ferro to zigzag order via a three-dimensional Kitaev spin liquid and an incommensurate phase. Experiment puts the system in the latter regime but the Kitaev spin liquid is very close and reachable by a slight modification of the ratio between the second- and first-neighbor couplings, for instance via strain.
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    Kitaev exchange and field-induced quantum spin-liquid states in honeycomb α-RuCl3
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2016) Yadav, Ravi; Bogdanov, Nikolay A.; Katukuri, Vamshi M.; Nishimoto, Satoshi; van den Brink, Jeroen; Hozoi, Liviu
    Large anisotropic exchange in 5d and 4d oxides and halides open the door to new types of magnetic ground states and excitations, inconceivable a decade ago. A prominent case is the Kitaev spin liquid, host of remarkable properties such as protection of quantum information and the emergence of Majorana fermions. Here we discuss the promise for spin-liquid behavior in the 4d5 honeycomb halide α-RuCl3. From advanced electronic-structure calculations, we find that the Kitaev interaction is ferromagnetic, as in 5d5 iridium honeycomb oxides, and indeed defines the largest superexchange energy scale. A ferromagnetic Kitaev coupling is also supported by a detailed analysis of the field-dependent magnetization. Using exact diagonalization and density-matrix renormalization group techniques for extended Kitaev-Heisenberg spin Hamiltonians, we find indications for a transition from zigzag order to a gapped spin liquid when applying magnetic field. Our results offer a unified picture on recent magnetic and spectroscopic measurements on this material and open new perspectives on the prospect of realizing quantum spin liquids in d5 halides and oxides in general.