Effect of Electric field on Breathing Pyrochlores

The coupling between conventional (Maxwell) and emergent electrodynamics in quantum spin ice has been studied by Lantagne-Hurtubise et al. (Phys. Rev. B 96, 125145) where they find that a uniform electric field can be used to tune the properties of both the ground state and excitations of the spin liquid. Extending the study to the case of breathing pyrochlores, we find a sufficiently strong electric field triggers a quantum phase transition into new U (1) quantum spin liquid phases along a direction that did not show a phase transition in the isotropic limit. We also analyse the phase diagram of breathing pyrochlores in the presence of Electric field using gauge mean field theory. Finally, we discuss experimental aspects of our results.