Effective Hamiltonians for large-S pyrochlore antiferromagnets

The pyrochlore lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet has a massive classical ground-state degeneracy. We summarize three approximation schemes, valid for large spin length S, to capture the (partial) lifting of this degeneracy when zero-point quantum fluctuations are taken into account; all three are related to analytic loop expansions. The first is harmonic-order spin waves; at this order, there remains an infinite manifold of degenerate collinear ground states, related by a gauge-like symmetry. The second is anharmonic (quartic order) spin waves, using a self-consistent approximation; the harmonic-order degeneracy is split, but (within numerical precision) some degeneracy may remain, with entropy still of order L in a system of L3 sites. The third is a large-N approximation, a standard and convenient approach for frustrated antiferromagnets; however, the large-N result contradicts the harmonic order at O(S) and hence must be wrong (for large S).

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