Spin dynamics and continuum spectra of the honeycomb J1−J2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model

Abstract

We employ the spin cluster perturbation theory to investigate the dynamical properties of the antiferromagnetic $J_{1}$-$J_{2}$ Heisenberg model on the honeycomb lattice. We obtain the excitation spectra for all possible phases in the phase diagram, including the N\'{e}el phase, plaquette valence-bond-solid phase, dimer valence-bond-solid phase and stripe antiferromagnetic phase. In the N\'{e}el phase, besides the obvious renormalization of the magnon dispersion, we find that the spectrum exhibits a dome-shaped broad continuum around the second Brillouin zone (BZ) and the additional strong continuum close to the corner of the BZ. In the valence-bond-solid phases, the spectra are dominated by a strong broad continuum all the way down to below $J_1$ coexisting with the lowest-energy triplon modes characterizing the plaquette and dimer phases. We ascribe this strong broad continuum and the additional continuum close to the BZ corner in the N\'{e}el phase to the contributions of fractionalized spinon excitations. In the stripe phase, a clear difference from the linear spin wave approximation is that the spectrum is gapped at the $M$ point while that obtained by the latter is gapless due to the strong quantum fluctuations. We point out that the features observed in the N\'{e}el phase are consistent with the recent neutron scattering experiments on YbCl$_{3}$ and YbBr$_{3}$.