Chiral phases of two-dimensional hard-core bosons with frustrated ring exchange

Abstract

We study the zero-temperature phase diagram of two-dimensional hard-core bosons on a square lattice with nearest-neighbor and plaquette (ring-exchange) hoppings, at arbitrary densities, by means of a hierarchical mean-field theory. In the frustrated regime, where quantum Monte Carlo suffers from a sign problem, we find a rich phase diagram where exotic states with nonzero chirality emerge. Among them, novel insulating phases, characterized by nonzero bond-chirality and plaquette order, are found over a large region of the parameter space. In the unfrustrated regime, the hierarchical mean-field approach improves over the standard mean-field treatment as it is able to capture the transition from a superfluid to a valence bond state upon increasing the strength of the ring-exchange term, in qualitative agreement with quantum Monte Carlo results.