Comment on "Spin-1/2 Kagome Heisenberg Antiferromagnet: Machine Learning Discovery of the Spinon Pair-Density-Wave Ground State"

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Main Authors: Kamal, Helia, Kufel, Dominik, Vu, DinhDuy, Laumann, Chris R., Yao, Norman Y.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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_version_ 1866914609535909888
author Kamal, Helia
Kufel, Dominik
Vu, DinhDuy
Laumann, Chris R.
Yao, Norman Y.
author_facet Kamal, Helia
Kufel, Dominik
Vu, DinhDuy
Laumann, Chris R.
Yao, Norman Y.
contents A recent article [Phys. Rev. X 15, 011047 (2025)] utilizes group-equivariant convolutional neural networks to study the ground state of the kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet. On the largest finite-size cluster studied to date ($N=108$), the authors report variational energies significantly lower than other numerical methods, including state-of-the-art density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculations. In contrast to previous results suggesting a possible spin-liquid ground state, the authors observe a spinon pair-density-wave ground state. We find that: (i) the reported low energies are artifacts of broken ergodicity in the Metropolis--Hastings sampling, since the single-spin-flip update rule utilized by the authors effectively freezes the Markov chains; and (ii) when ergodic sampling is enforced via spin-exchange updates, the neural network converges to energies significantly higher than existing DMRG results, calling the paper's claims into question.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_28861
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Comment on "Spin-1/2 Kagome Heisenberg Antiferromagnet: Machine Learning Discovery of the Spinon Pair-Density-Wave Ground State"
Kamal, Helia
Kufel, Dominik
Vu, DinhDuy
Laumann, Chris R.
Yao, Norman Y.
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Machine Learning
A recent article [Phys. Rev. X 15, 011047 (2025)] utilizes group-equivariant convolutional neural networks to study the ground state of the kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet. On the largest finite-size cluster studied to date ($N=108$), the authors report variational energies significantly lower than other numerical methods, including state-of-the-art density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculations. In contrast to previous results suggesting a possible spin-liquid ground state, the authors observe a spinon pair-density-wave ground state. We find that: (i) the reported low energies are artifacts of broken ergodicity in the Metropolis--Hastings sampling, since the single-spin-flip update rule utilized by the authors effectively freezes the Markov chains; and (ii) when ergodic sampling is enforced via spin-exchange updates, the neural network converges to energies significantly higher than existing DMRG results, calling the paper's claims into question.
title Comment on "Spin-1/2 Kagome Heisenberg Antiferromagnet: Machine Learning Discovery of the Spinon Pair-Density-Wave Ground State"
topic Strongly Correlated Electrons
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.28861