Exceptional Spin Liquids from Couplings to the Environment

We establish the appearance of a qualitatively new type of spin liquid with emergent exceptional points when coupling to the environment. We consider an open system of the Kitaev honeycomb model generically coupled to an external environment. In extended parameter regimes, the Dirac points of the em...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2021-02
Main Authors: Kang, Yang, Morampudi, Siddhardh C, Bergholtz, Emil J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boundary conditions
Couplings
Fermions
Liquids
Open systems
Skin effect
Spin liquid
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We establish the appearance of a qualitatively new type of spin liquid with emergent exceptional points when coupling to the environment. We consider an open system of the Kitaev honeycomb model generically coupled to an external environment. In extended parameter regimes, the Dirac points of the emergent Majorana fermions from the original model are split into exceptional points with Fermi arcs connecting them. In glaring contrast to the original gapless phase of the honeycomb model which requires time-reversal symmetry, this new phase is stable against all perturbations. The system also displays a large sensitivity to boundary conditions resulting from the non-Hermitian skin effect with telltale experimental consequences. Our results point to the emergence of new classes of spin liquids in open systems which might be generically realized due to unavoidable couplings with the environment.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2007.04329