The Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the square-kagomé lattice

Abstract

We discuss the ground state, the low-lying excitations as well as high-field thermodynamics of the Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the two-dimensional square-kagomé lattice. This magnetic system belongs to the class of highly frustrated spin systems with an infinite non-trivial degeneracy of the classical ground state as it is also known for the Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the kagomé and on the star lattice. The quantum ground state of the spin-half system is a quantum paramagnet with a finite spin gap and with a large number of non-magnetic excitations within this gap. We also discuss the magnetization versus field curve that shows a plateaux as well as a macroscopic magnetization jump to saturation due to independent localized magnon states. These localized states are highly degenerate and lead to interesting features in the low-temperature thermodynamics at high magnetic fields such as an additional low-temperature peak in the specific heat and an enhanced magnetocaloric effect.

Keywords

• frustration
• quantum Heisenberg antiferromagnet
• quantum disorder
• strong magnetic field