Response and phase transition of a Kitaev spin liquid in a local magnetic field

Abstract

We study the response of the Kitaev spin liquid (KSL) to a local magnetic field perpendicular to the Kitaev honeycomb lattice. The local magnetic field induces a dynamical excitation of a flux pair in the spin liquid and the system can be described by a generally particle-hole asymmetric interacting resonant level model. The dynamical excitation of the flux pair closes the flux gap in the spectrum of the spin correlation function locally for the gapless KSL even from the perturbative response to a weak magnetic field. Beyond the perturbative regime, the p-h asymmetry competes with the magnetic field and results in a rich phase diagram. Moreover, the magnetic field breaks the gauge equivalence of the ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic Kitaev couplings of the ground state and leads to very different behaviors for the two cases. The anti-ferromagnetic case experiences a first order phase transition to the polarized state during magnetization whereas the ferromagnetic case does not. This study can be generalized to the Kitaev model in a uniform magnetic field and may help understand issues in recent experiments on KSL candidates.