Understanding the Magnetic-Field Anisotropy of Kitaev Materials

The Kitaev spin liquid remains the most theoretically well-understood quantum spin liquid due to the exact solvability of the Kitaev model. However, other interactions such as the off-diagonal spin interactions render the model non-integrable, but give rise to the magnetic order seen at low temperatures in candidate materials. Recently it was shown that when a magnetic field is applied along a certain direction, the magnetic order melts into an intermediate-field phase before the spins are fully polarized, A thorough understanding of the interplay between field and spin exchange anisotropy is required to understand field-induced phases. To this end, we present the classical and quantum phase diagrams of the extended anisotropic Kitaev model under different magnetic field directions.