Emergence of quantum spin frustration in spin-1/2 Ising-Heisenberg model on a decorated honeycomb lattice

Abstract

We study the spin-1/2 Ising-XXZ model on a decorated honeycomb lattice composed of five spins per unit cell, one Ising spin, and four Heisenberg spins. This model involving the Heisenberg exchange interaction is one of the few models that can be exactly solvable through the generalized star-triangle transformation. The significance of this model is its close relationship to the fully decorated quantum Heisenberg honeycomb lattice since 4/5 of the particles are Heisenberg spins. We investigate the phase diagram at zero temperature and identify a relevant quantum spin frustrated phase resulting from the contribution of quantum Heisenberg exchange interaction. We obtain an exact residual entropy for the quantum spin frustrated phase, which coincides with the residual entropy of the antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 Ising model on a triangular lattice. We also thoroughly explore its thermodynamic properties, focusing mainly on the frustrated region such as entropy, specific heat, spontaneous magnetization, and critical temperature under several conditions.