Tensor network study of the $m=1/2$ magnetization plateau in the Shastry-Sutherland model at finite temperature

Understand

The two-dimensional infinite projected entangled pair states tensor network is evolved in imaginary time with the full update (FU) algorithm to simulate the Shastry-Sutherland model in a magnetic field at finite temperature directly in the thermodynamic limit.

• We focus on the phase transition into the $m=1/2$ magnetization plateau, which was observed in experiments on SrCu$_2$(BO$_3$)$_2$.
• For the largest simulated bond dimension, the early evolution in the high-temperature regime is simulated with the simple update (SU) scheme and then, as the correlation length increases, continued with the FU scheme towards the critical regime.
• We apply a small symmetry-breaking bias field and then extrapolate towards zero bias using a simple scaling theory in the bias field.