Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) Summer 8-13-2013 Physics of Resonating Valence Bond Spin Liquids Julia Saskia Wildeboer Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd Recommended Citation Wildeboer, Julia Saskia, "Physics of Resonating Valence Bond Spin Liquids" (2013). All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs). 1163. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/1163 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS Department of Physics Dissertation Examination Committee: Alexander Seidel, Chair Zohar Nussinov Michael C. Ogilvie Jung-Tsung Shen Xiang Tang Li Yang Physics of Resonating Valence Bond Spin Liquids by Julia Saskia Wildeboer A dissertation presented to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2013 St. Louis, Missouri TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES ................................ v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................. ix DEDICATION ................................... ix ABSTRACT .................................... xi 1 Introduction .................................. 1 1.1 Landau’s principle of symmetry breaking and topological order .... 2 1.2 From quantum dimer models to spin models .............. 5 1.2.1 The Rokhsar-Kivelson (RK) point ................ 12 1.3 QDM phase diagrams ........................... 14 1.4 Z2 quantum spin liquid and other topological phases .......... 15 1.4.1 Z2 RVB liquid ........................... 16 1.4.2 U(1) critical RVB liquid ....................