New valence bond crystal phase of a frustrated spin-1/2 square lattice antiferromagnet

We propose a new type of magnetically disordered ground state for a frustrated quantum antiferromagnet. This disordered state is an array of spin singlets spontaneously formed on four spin plaquettes. Both perturbation results and bond-operator calculations show that this phase has lower energy than the columnar dimer state. Analysis of available numerical data on finite clusters also supports the conclusion that this state is realized at intermediate frustrations.