Plaquette valence-bond crystal in the frustrated Heisenberg quantum antiferromagnet on the square lattice

Using both exact diagonalizations and diagonalizations in a subset of short-range valence-bond singlets, we address the nature of the groundstate of the Heisenberg spin-1∕2 antiferromagnet on the square lattice with competing next-nearest and next-next-nearest neighbor antiferromagnetic couplings (J1−J2−J3 model). A detailed comparison of the two approaches reveals a region along the line (J2+J3)∕J1=1∕2, where the description in terms of nearest-neighbor singlet coverings is excellent, therefore providing evidence for a magnetically disordered region. Furthermore, a careful analysis of dimer-dimer correlation functions, dimer structure factors and plaquette-plaquette correlation functions provides striking evidence for the presence of a plaquette valence bond crystal order in part of the magnetically disordered region.