Theory of quantum kagome ice

Some pyrochlore oxides realize novel dipolar-octupolar (DO) doublets on the sites of the pyrochlore lattice of corner-sharing tetrahedra. With magnetic field along the (111) direction, such systems can approximately be described as decoupled layers of a $S=\frac{1}{2}$ XYZ model on Kagome planes, with perpendicular magnetic field. A recent quantum Monte Carlo study found a zero temperature disordered phase in this model, dubbed quantum kagome ice, and proposed that it is a type of $Z_2$ quantum spin liquid (J. Carrasquilla, Z. Hao and R. G. Melko, \emph{Nat. Comm.}, \textbf{6}, 7421). We will describe an effective theory for this putative $Z_2$ spin liquid, and present results on its symmetry fractionalization and resulting properties that may be tested in future numerical simulations.