Unification of parton and coupled-wire approaches to quantum magnetism in two dimensions

Abstract

The fractionalization of microscopic degrees of freedom is a remarkable manifestation of strong interactions in quantum many-body systems. Analytical studies of this phenomenon are primarily based on two distinct frameworks: field theories of partons and emergent gauge fields, or coupled arrays of one-dimensional quantum wires. We unify these approaches for two-dimensional spin systems. Via exact manipulations, we demonstrate how parton gauge theories arise in microscopic wire arrays and explicitly relate spin operators to emergent quasiparticles and gauge-field monopoles. This correspondence allows us to compute physical correlation functions within both formulations and leads to a straightforward algorithm for constructing parent Hamiltonians for a wide range of exotic phases. We exemplify this technique for several chiral and nonchiral quantum spin liquids.