Competing Paramagnetic Phases in the Maple-Leaf Heisenberg Antiferromagnet

by Alexander Wietek

Thursday Apr 9, 2026, 2:15 PM → 3:45 PM Europe/Berlin

Geometrically frustrated lattices are promising settings for realizing quantum paramagnets and spin liquids. The maple-leaf lattice has recently attracted attention as an intermediate geometry between triangular and strongly dimerized magnets that naturally hosts competing local singlet patterns, realized in several newly found material compounds. In this talk, I will discuss the properties of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on this lattice. Using exact diagonalization and variational Gutzwiller projected wave-functions we uncover a rich ground-state phase diagram in which several magnetic and valence-bond ordered phases lie in close proximity, placing the isotropic point near a non-magnetic regime consistent with a gapped Z2 spin liquid. Moreover, I will discuss thermodynamic properties of the same model, providing additional context for the low-temperature behavior.

 

Literature:

Paul L. Ebert, Yasir Iqbal, Alexander Wietek, arXiv:2601.05308

Robin Schäfer, Paul L. Ebert, Noah Hassan, Johannes Reuther, David J. Luitz, Alexander Wietek, arXiv:2511.21806