Quantum phase transition in a Heisenberg antiferromagnet on a square lattice with strong plaquette interactions

We present numerical results for an S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on an inhomogeneous square lattice with tunable interaction between spins belonging to different plaquettes. Employing quantum Monte Carlo, we significantly improve on previous results for the critical point separating singlet-disordered and Néel-ordered phases and obtain an estimate for the critical exponent ν consistent with the three-dimensional classical Heisenberg universality class. Additionally, we show that a fairly accurate result for the critical point can be obtained from a contractor renormalization expansion by applying a surprisingly simple analysis to the effective Hamiltonian.