Chiral Broken Symmetry Descendants of the Kagomé Lattice Chiral Spin Liquid
Abstract
The breaking of chiral and time-reversal symmetries provides a pathway to
exotic quantum phenomena and topological phases. In particular, the breaking of
chiral (mirror) symmetry in quantum materials has been shown to have important
technological applications. Recent work has extensively explored the resulting
emergence of chiral charge orders and chiral spin liquids on the kagomé
lattice. Such chiral spin liquids are closely tied to bosonic fractional
quantum Hall states and host anyonic quasiparticles; however, their connection
to nearby magnetically ordered states has remained a mystery. Here, we show
that two distinct non-coplanar magnetic orders with uniform spin chirality, the
XYZ umbrella state and the Octahedral spin crystal, emerge as competing orders
in close proximity to the kagomé chiral spin liquid. Our results highlight
the intimate link between a many-body topologically ordered liquid and broken
symmetry states with nontrivial real-space topology.