Kinetic ferromagnetism and topological magnons of the hole-doped Kitaev spin liquid

Abstract

We study the effect of hole doping on the Kitaev spin liquid (KSL) and find that for ferromagnetic (FM) Kitaev exchange K the system is very susceptible to the formation of a FM spin polarization. Through density matrix renormalization group simulations on finite systems, we uncover that the introduction of a single hole, corresponding to ≈1% hole doping for the system size we consider, with a hopping strength of just t ~ 0.28K is enough to disrupt fractionalization and polarize the spins in the [001] direction due to an order-by-disorder mechanism. Taking into account a material relevant FM anisotropic exchange Γ drives the polarization towards the [111] direction via a transition into a topological FM state with chiral magnon excitations. We develop a parton mean-field theory incorporating fermionic holons and bosonic magnons, which accounts for the doping induced FM phases and topological magnon excitations. We discuss experimental implications for Kitaev candidate materials.