Transitions to valence-bond solid order in a honeycomb lattice antiferromagnet

Abstract

We use Quantum Monte-Carlo methods to study the ground state phase diagram of a S=1/2 honeycomb lattice magnet in which a nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic exchange J (favoring N\'eel order) competes with two different multi-spin interaction terms: a six-spin interaction Q_3 that favors columnar valence-bond solid (VBS) order, and a four-spin interaction Q_2 that favors staggered VBS order. For Q_3 ~ Q_2 >> J, we establish that the competition between the two different VBS orders stabilizes N\'eel order in a large swathe of the phase diagram even when J is the smallest energy-scale in the Hamiltonian. When Q_3 >> (Q_2,J) (Q_2 >> (Q_3,J)), this model exhibits at zero temperature phase transition from the N\'eel state to a columnar (staggered) VBS state. We establish that the N\'eel-columnar VBS transition is continuous for all values of Q_2, and that critical properties along the entire phase boundary are well-characterized by critical exponents and amplitudes of the non-compact CP^1 (NCCP^1) theory of deconfined criticality, similar to what is observed on a square lattice. However, a surprising three-fold anisotropy of the phase of the VBS order parameter at criticality, whose presence was recently noted at the Q_2=0 deconfined critical point, is seen to persist all along this phase boundary. We use a classical analogy to explore this by studying the critical point of a three-dimensional XY model with a four-fold anisotropy field which is known to be weakly irrelevant at the three-dimensional XY critical point. In this case, we again find that the critical anisotropy appears to saturate to a nonzero value over the range of sizes accessible to our simulations.