Contrasting ground states of quantum magnets with the integer- and half-integer-spin moments are the manifestation of many-body quantum interference effects. In this work, we investigate the distinct nature of the integer- and half-integer-spin quantum spin liquids in the framework of the Kitaev's model on the honeycomb lattice. The models with arbitrary spin quantum numbers are not exactly solvable in contrast to the well-known quantum spin liquid solution of the spin-1/2 system. We use the tensor-network wave functions for the integer-and half-integer-spin quantum spin liquid states to unveil the important difference between these states. We find that the distinct sign structures of the tensor-network wave function for the integer- and half-integer-spin quantum spin liquids are responsible for completely different ground states in the spatially anisotropic limit. Hence the spatial anisotropy would be a useful diagnostic test for distinguishing these quantum spin liquid states, both in the numerical computations and experiments on real materials. We support this discovery via extensive numerics including the tensor-network, DMRG, and exact diagonalization computations.

• Received 10 August 2020
• Revised 30 June 2021
• Accepted 1 July 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.104.024417