Magnetic excitations, phase diagram, and order-by-disorder in the extended triangular-lattice Hubbard model

The dynamical structure factor is an important observable of quantum magnets but due to numerical and theoretical limitations, it remains a challenge to make predictions for Hubbard-like models beyond one dimension. In this work, we study the magnetic excitations of the triangular lattice Hubbard model including next-nearest neighbour hopping. Starting from the {120deg} and stripe magnetic orders we compute the relevant magnon spectra within a self-consistent random phase approximation. In the stripe phase, we generically find accidental zero modes related to a classical degeneracy known from the corresponding $J_1$--$J_2$ Heisenberg model. We extend the order-by-disorder mechanism to Hubbard systems and show how quantum fluctuations stabilize the stripe order. In addition, the frustration-induced condensation of magnon modes allows us to map out the entire phase diagram in agreement with recent numerical works. We discuss connections to experiments on triangular lattice compounds and the relation of our results to the proposed chiral spin liquid phase.