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Kitaev Honeycomb

The excitation spectrum of the Kitaev Honeycomb is given by:


(q) = 2|Jx ei(~q.n~1 ) + Jy ei(~q.n~2 ) + Jz |

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The different phases of the honeycomb can be represented by a slice of the plane
Jx + Jy + Jz = 1 in the parameter space.This results in the following triangle:

Finding accurately if a spectrum is gapless from the graph of its excitation


spectrum is not possible, because even the minimum values(as found from the
vectors in matlab) only tend to zero as we decrease the step-size. Hence, say
an apparently gapped spectrum with a minimum energy value of 0.05 might
in reality be gapless in the exact limit.However, we can observe the changes in
the minimum energy values as we move along the three different rays, OX,OY
and OZ as shown in the triangle. A marked change in the minimum values can
be observed in the final graphs which indicates a phase transition. And this
occurs exactly where we would like it to be, at the point when the parameters
invalidate the triangle inequality.
We present a series of excitation spectra along the line from the middle of
the triangle to one of its vertices as shown, at regular intervals. As expected
we find that the spectrum becomes gapped at a certain point along this line,
and this happens abruptly as can be seen from a latter graph of the minimum
energies of the different excitation graphs.
We start at the Point, Jx = Jy = Jz = 10. We progress along increments(decrements) of 0.5 for about 12 times. In the end, we plot the minimum
excitation energy values and we get, as expected a sharp change at the point of
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phase transition. The excitation spectrums are presented below:


Along the Line, OZ:

The minimum values graph:

Along the Line, OX:

The minimum values graph:

Along the Line, OY:

The minimum values graph:

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