Fractional spin quantum Hall effect in weakly coupled spin chain arrays

Topological magnetic insulators host chiral gapless edge modes. In the presence of strong interaction effects, the spin of these modes may fractionalize. Studying a two-dimensional array of coupled insulating spin-<a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><a:mrow><a:mn>1</a:mn><a:mo>/</a:mo><a:mn>2</a:mn></a:mrow></a:math> chains, we show how spatially modulated magnetic fields and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions can be exploited to realize chiral spin liquids or integer and fractional spin quantum Hall effect phases. These are characterized by a gapped bulk spectrum and gapless chiral edge modes with fractional spin. The spin fractionalization is manifested in the quantized spin conductance, which can be used to probe the fractional spin quantum Hall effect. We analyze the system via bosonization and perturbative renormalization group techniques that allow us to identify the most relevant terms induced by the spin-spin interactions that open gaps and render the system topological under well-specified resonance conditions. We show explicitly that the emerging phase is a genuine chiral spin liquid. We suggest that the phases can be realized experimentally in synthetic spin chains and ultracold atom systems. Published by the American Physical Society 2024