Quantum orders and symmetric spin liquids

Abstract

A concept—quantum order—is introduced to describe a new kind of orders that generally appear in quantum states at zero temperature. Quantum orders that characterize the universality classes of quantum states (described by complex ground-state wave functions) are much richer than classical orders that characterize the universality classes of finite-temperature classical states (described by positive probability distribution functions). Landau’s theory for orders and phase transitions does not apply to quantum orders since they cannot be described by broken symmetries and the associated order parameters. We introduced a mathematical object—projective symmetry group—to characterize quantum orders. With the help of quantum orders and projective symmetry groups, we construct hundreds of symmetric spin liquids, which have SU(2), U(1), or $Z_2$ gauge structures at low energies. We found that various spin liquids can be divided into four classes: (a) Rigid spin liquid—spinons (and all other excitations) are fully gapped and may have bosonic, fermionic, or fractional statistics. (b) Fermi spin liquid—spinons are gapless and are described by a Fermi liquid theory. (c) Algebraic spin liquid—spinons are gapless, but they are not described by free fermionic-bosonic quasiparticles. (d) Bose spin liquid—low-lying gapless excitations are described by a free-boson theory. The stability of those spin liquids is discussed in detail. We find that stable two-dimensional spin liquids exist in the first three classes (a)–(c). Those stable spin liquids occupy a finite region in phase space and represent quantum phases. Remarkably, some of the stable quantum phases support gapless excitations even without any spontaneous symmetry breaking. In particular, the gapless excitations in algebraic spin liquids interact down to zero energy and the interaction does not open any energy gap. We propose that it is the quantum orders (instead of symmetries) that protect the gapless excitations and make algebraic spin liquids and Fermi spin liquids stable. Since high-$T_c$ superconductors are likely to be described by a gapless spin liquid, the quantum orders and their projective symmetry group descriptions lay the foundation for a spin liquid approach to high-$T_c$ superconductors.