Dimerization tendencies of the pyrochlore Heisenberg antiferromagnet: A functional renormalization group perspective

Abstract

We investigate the ground-state properties of the spin-1/2 pyrochlore Heisenberg antiferromagnet using pseudofermion functional renormalization group techniques. The first part of our analysis is based on an enhanced parton mean-field approach, which takes into account fluctuation effects from renormalized vertex functions. Our implementation of this technique extends earlier approaches and resolves technical difficulties associated with a diagrammatic overcounting. Using various parton ansätze for quantum spin liquids, dimerized and nematic states our results indicate a tendency for lattice symmetry breaking in the ground state. While overall quantum spin liquids seem unfavorable in this system, the recently proposed monopole state still shows the strongest support among all spin liquid ansätze that we have tested, which is further confirmed by our complementary variational Monte Carlo calculations. In the second part of our investigation, we probe lattice symmetry breaking more directly by applying the pseudofermion functional renormalization group to perturbed systems. Our results from this technique confirm that the system's ground state either exhibits broken C3 rotation symmetry, or a combination of inversion and C3 symmetry breaking.