Frustrated Ferromagnetism of Honeycomb Cobaltates: Incommensurate Spirals, Quantum Disordered Phases, and Out-of-Plane Ising Order

Abstract: Recent experiments on the Co-based $d^7$ honeycomb materials BaCo$_2$(AsO$_4$)$_2$ and BaCo$_2$(PO$_4$)$_2$ have drawn renewed interest to XXZ models with competing interactions beyond the nearest neighbor exchange. While the case of dominant antiferromagnetic exchange has been extensively studied, the actual materials exhibit a ferromagnetic nearest neighbor exchange. Here we show that such a sign change of the dominant nearest neighbor coupling has substantial consequences on the phase diagram. In particular, the nature of the quantum disordered phase of interest changes from a plaquette valence bond crystal to a long-range entangled spin liquid phase. By means of complementary numerical simulations, based on exact diagonalization and the pseudo-fermion functional renormalization group, we demonstrate the formation of a gapless spin liquid state at the heart of the ferromagnetic phase diagram in the isotropic Heisenberg limit, which gives way to out-of-plane Ising magnetic order upon inclusion of XXZ anisotropy. The magnetically ordered phases surrounding this quantum disordered region are much less sensitive to the sign change of the dominant interaction and can be understood from their classical analogs. We briefly comment on the relevance of our results for Co-based $d^7$ honeycomb materials.