We study a class of integrable alternating ( S 1 , S 2 ) quantum spin chains with critical ground state properties. Our main result is the description of the thermal Drude weight of the one-dimensional alternating spin chain as a function of temperature. We have identified the thermal current of the model with alternating spins as one of the conserved currents underlying the integrability. This allows for the derivation of a finite set of non-linear integral equations for the thermal conductivity. Numerical solutions to the integral equations are presented for specific cases of the spins S 1 and S 2 . In the low-temperature limit a universal picture evolves where the thermal Drude weight is proportional to temperature T and central charge c .
We study a class of integrable alternating ( S 1 , S 2 ) quantum spin chains with critical ground state properties. Our main result is the description of the thermal Drude weight of the one-dimensional alternating spin chain as a function of temperature. We have identified the thermal current of the model with alternating spins as one of the conserved currents underlying the integrability. This allows for the derivation of a finite set of non-linear integral equations for the thermal conductivity. Numerical solutions to the integral equations are presented for specific cases of the spins S 1 and S 2 . In the low-temperature limit a universal picture evolves where the thermal Drude weight is proportional to temperature T and central charge c .
We study the spin and thermal conductivity of spin-21 ladders and chains at finite temperature, relevant for experiments with quantum magnets. Using a state-of-the-art density matrix renormalization group algorithm, we compute the current autocorrelation functions on the real-time axis and then carry out a Fourier integral to extract the frequency dependence of the corresponding conductivities. The finite-time error is analyzed carefully. We first investigate the limiting case of spin-21XXZ chains, for which our analysis suggests nonzero dc conductivities in all interacting cases irrespective of the presence or absence of spin Drude weights. For ladders, we observe that all models studied are normal conductors with no ballistic contribution. Nonetheless, only the high-temperature spin conductivity of XX ladders has a simple diffusive, Drude-like form, while Heisenberg ladders exhibit a more complicated low-frequency behavior. We compute the dc spin conductivity down to temperatures of the order of $T\ensuremath{\sim}0.5J$, where J is the exchange coupling along the legs of the ladder. We further extract mean-free paths and discuss our results in relation to thermal conductivity measurements on quantum magnets.
We report a detailed analysis of the Drude weights for both thermal and spin transport in one-dimensional spin-21 systems by means of exact diagonalization and analytic approaches at finite temperatures. Transport properties are studied first for the integrable XXZ model and second for various nonintegrable systems such as the dimerized chain, the frustrated chain, and the spin ladder. We compare our results obtained by exact diagonalization and mean-field theory with those of the Bethe ansatz, bosonization, and other numerical studies in the case of the anisotropic Heisenberg model both in the gapless and gapped regime. In particular, we find indications that the Drude weight for spin transport is finite in the thermodynamic limit for the isotropic chain. For the nonintegrable models, a finite-size analysis of the numerical data for the Drude weights is presented, covering the entire parameter space of the dimerized and frustrated chain. We also discuss which conclusions can be drawn from bosonization regarding the question of whether the Drude weights are finite or not. One of our main results is that the Drude weights vanish in the thermodynamic limit for nonintegrable models.
The spin conductivity in the integrable spin-1∕2XXZ chain is known to be infinite at finite temperatures T for anisotropies $\ensuremath{-}1<\ensuremath{\Delta}<1$. Perturbations, which break integrability, e.g., a next-nearest neighbor coupling ${J}^{\ensuremath{'}}$, render the conductivity finite. We construct numerically a nonlocal conserved operator ${J}_{\ensuremath{\parallel}}$ which is responsible for the finite spin Drude weight of the integrable model and calculate its decay rate for small ${J}^{\ensuremath{'}}$. This allows us to obtain a lower bound for the spin conductivity ${\ensuremath{\sigma}}_{s}\ensuremath{\geqslant}c(T)∕{{J}^{\ensuremath{'}}}^{2}$, where c(T) is finite for ${J}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$. We discuss the implication of our result for the general question how nonlocal conservation laws affect transport properties.
This thesis studies transport properties of low-dimensional quantum spin systems with a particular focus on the transport of heat and spin. While the integrable anisotropic spin-1/2 chain exhibits ballistic transport (finite Drude weights), the numerical results of this work show that heat and spin transport of non-integrable models (spin ladder, frustrated and dimerized chain) is not ballistic, characterized by vanishing Drude weights in the thermodynamic limit. The results for the thermal conductivity of spin ladders are compared to experimental data. For the case of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain, this work contains detailed results for the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the Drude weights. Finally, bond-disordered spin systems are considered, namely the spin-1/2 chain and the spin ladder. In the first case, the transport coefficients are computed by means of exact diagonalization and discussed as a function of frequency, temperature, and magnetic field. In the second case, spectral properties of the elementary excitation of disordered spin ladders are analyzed using diagrammatic perturbation theory and numerical techniques.
Using the Bethe ansatz method and generalized hydrodynamics (GHD), properties of the spin transport is analyzed for the integrable XXZ chain with the anisotropy 0 ≤ ∆ < 1.Our approach starts from reconstructing the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz (TBA) equations for the integrable XXZ chain with arbitrary spin.We obtain the fusion hierarchy of the quantum transfer matrices (T -functions) in the arbitrary spin case, and we derive functional relations (T -and Y -systems) satisfied by the T -functions and certain combinations of them (Y -functions).Through analytical arguments, the Y -system is reduced to a set of non-linear integral equations, equivalent to the TBA equations.At first, we use the TBA equations for some higher-spin chains in order to examine the regular zero frequency contribution to the spin current correlation (spin dc conductivity) for the spin-1/2 XXZ chain.In the high temperature limit, we write down the dressed scattering kernels by one quasi-particle bare energies and exactly obtain the spin dc conductivity at zero magnetic field, which is proportional to the inverse temperature β at the β → 0 limit.We find that the high temperature proportionality constant σ reg 0 of the spin dc conductivity is discontinuous at all rational numbers of the anisotropy parameter p 0 = π/ cos -1 ∆ ≥ 2 with the gap increasing larger than the second power of growing magnetization on one quasiparticle.The isotropic ∆ = 1 point is exceptional.Close to this point, σ reg 0 slowly increases in proportion to the first power of the one quasi-particle magnetization.On the other hand, σ reg 0 is proportional to the second power of the same when p 0 approaches irrational numbers.At second, we examine the finite-temperature spin Drude weight for the integrable XXZ chain with arbitrary spin, where GHD methods are employed.We calculate the spin Drude weight at zero magnetic field, and we find a characteristic fractal-like structure of the Drude weight at arbitrary spin across a broad range of temperatures, similar to the spin-1/2 case.In our approach, the solutions to the TBA equations (i.e., the Y -functions) can be explicitly written in terms of the T -functions, thus allowing for a systematic calculation of the hightemperature limit of the Drude weight, as well as the spin dc conductivity in the spin 1/2 case. B Proof of the equivalence between(2.43) and (2.73) C Delivation of the TBA equations for the integrable XXZ chain with arbitrary spin C.1 Free energy . . . . . . . . . .
We study thermal transport in one-dimensional spin systems both in the presence and absence of impurities. In the absence of disorder, all these spin systems display in the continuum limit a temperature-dependent Drude peak in the thermal conductivity. In gapless systems, the low-temperature Drude weight is proportional to temperature and to the central charge, which characterizes the conformal field theory that describes the system at low energies. On the other hand, the low-temperature Drude weight of spin gap systems shows an activated behavior modulated by a power law. For temperatures higher than the spin gap, one recovers the linear T behavior akin to gapless systems. For temperatures larger than the exchange coupling, the Drude weight decays as ${T}^{\ensuremath{-}2}.$ We argue that this behavior is a generic feature of quasi-one-dimensional spin gap systems with a relativistic like low-energy dispersion. We also consider the effect of a magnetic field on the Drude weight with emphasis on the commensurate-incommensurate transition induced by it. We then study the effect of nonmagnetic impurities on the thermal conductivity of the dimerized XY chain and the spin-21 two-leg ladder. Impurities destroy the Drude peak and the thermal conductivity exhibits a purely activated behavior at low temperature, with an activation gap renormalized by disorder. The relevance of these results for experiments is briefly discussed.