SU(2) slave-boson formulation of spin nematic states in S=1/2 frustrated ferromagnets

An SU(2) slave-boson formulation of bond-type spin nematic orders is developed in frustrated ferromagnets, where the spin nematic states are described as the resonating spin-triplet valence bond (RVB) states. The d vectors of spin-triplet pairing ansatzes play the role of the directors in the bond-type spin-quadrupolar states. The low-energy excitations around such spin-triplet RVB ansatzes generally comprise the (potentially mass-less) gauge bosons, massless Goldstone bosons, and spinon individual excitations. Extending the projective symmetry-group argument to the spin-triplet ansatzes, we show how to identify the number of massless gauge bosons efficiently. Applying this formulation, we next (i) enumerate possible mean-field solutions for the S=1/2 ferromagnetic J(1)-J(2) Heisenberg model on the square lattice, with ferromagnetic nearest neighbor J(1) and competing antiferromagnetic next-nearest neighbor J(2) and (ii) argue their stability against small gauge fluctuations. As a result, two stable spin-triplet RVB ansatzes are found in the intermediate coupling regime around J(1):J(2) similar or equal to 1:0.4. One is the Z(2) Balian-Werthamer (BW) state stabilized by the Higgs mechanism and the other is the SU(2) chiral p-wave (Anderson-Brinkman-Morel) state stabilized by the Chern-Simon mechanism. The former Z(2) BW state in fact shows the same bond-type spin-quadrupolar order as found in the previous exact diagonalization study [Shannon et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 027213 (2006)].