The quantum spin-
21 orthogonal-dimer chain with the Heisenberg intradimer and Ising interdimer interactions in a magnetic field is considered by a rigorous approach. The model conserves the
z component of total spin on vertical Heisenberg bonds, and this property is used to calculate exactly the partition function using the transfer-matrix method. We have found the ground-state phase diagram of the given model in a magnetic field as well as the macroscopic degeneracy along field-induced transitions accompanied with the magnetization jumps. The model exhibits two intermediate fractional plateaux at one quarter and one half of the saturation magnetization. We have examined the effect of the exchange anisotropy in the
XXZ Heisenberg intradimer interaction on the ground state. It is shown that the one-quarter and one-half plateaux may disappear from the magnetization curve for the ferromagnetic Heisenberg intradimer interaction. We have also studied rigorously the effect of frustrated interactions on the thermodynamic and magnetic properties of the model and show how the macroscopic degeneracy of the ground state is reflected in the low-temperature behavior of the magnetization, entropy, and specific heat. A possibility of observing enhanced magnetocaloric effect during the adiabatic demagnetization is discussed in detail.
The spin-
21 Heisenberg orthogonal-dimer chain is considered within the perturbative strong-coupling approach, which is developed from the exactly solved spin-
21 Ising-Heisenberg orthogonal-dimer chain with the Heisenberg intradimer and the Ising interdimer couplings. Although the spin-
21 Ising-Heisenberg orthogonal-dimer chain exhibits just intermediate plateaus at zero, one-quarter, and one-half of the saturation magnetization, the perturbative treatment up to second order stemming from this exactly solvable model additionally corroborates the fractional one-third plateau as well as the gapless Luttinger spin-liquid phase. It is evidenced that the approximate results obtained from the strong-coupling approach are in an excellent agreement with the state-of-the-art numerical data obtained for the spin-
21 Heisenberg orthogonal-dimer chain within the exact diagonalization and density-matrix renormalization group method. The nature of individual quantum ground states is comprehensively studied within the developed perturbation theory.
We study a spin-1/2 model with triangular
XXZ clusters on the orthogonal-dimer chain in the presence of an external magnetic field. First, we discuss the case where the triangular clusters are coupled via intermediate ``classical'' Ising spins. Diagonalization of the triangular
XXZ clusters yields the exact ground states; finite-temperature properties are computed exactly by an additional transfer-matrix step. A detailed analysis reveals a large variety of ground states at magnetization
M equal to fractions 0,
1/4, and
1/2 of the saturation magnetization
M=1. Some of these ground states break translational symmetry spontaneously and give rise to doubling of the unit cell. In a second part, we present complementary numerical data for the spin-1/2 Heisenberg model on the orthogonal-dimer chain. We analyze several examples of
T=0 magnetization curves, entropy as a function of temperature
T and magnetic field, and the associated magnetic cooling rate. Comparison of the two models shows that in certain situations the simplified exactly solvable model yields a qualitatively or sometimes even quantitatively accurate description of the more challenging quantum model, including a case which may be relevant to experimental observations of an enhanced magnetocaloric effect in the two-dimensional compound SrCu
2(BO
3)
2.
The exactly solvable spin-1/2 Ising-Heisenberg distorted diamond chain in the presence of the external magnetic field is investigated for the case of antiferromagnetic Ising and ferromagnetic XXZ Heisenberg interactions. The influence of quantum fluctuations and the distortion on the ground state, magnetic and thermal properties of the model are studied in detail.In particular, it is established that the zero-temperature magnetization curve may involve intermediate plateaus just at zero and 1/3 of the saturation magnetization. It is demonstrated that the temperature dependence of the specific heat reveals up to four distinct peaks at zero magnetic field and up to five distinct peaks at a weak magnetic field. The physical origin of all observed additional peaks of the specific heat has been clarified on the grounds of dominating thermal excitations. We have shown that the quantum fluctuations give rise to an effective geometrical frustration in this chain.
It is evidenced that effective lattice-gas models of hard-core monomers and dimers afford a proper description of low-temperature features of spin-
21 Heisenberg diamond and octahedral chains. In addition to monomeric particles assigned within the localized-magnon theory to bound one- and two-magnon eigenstates, the effective monomer-dimer lattice-gas model includes dimeric particles assigned to a singlet-tetramer (singlet-hexamer) state as a cornerstone of dimer-tetramer (tetramer-hexamer) ground state of a spin-
21 Heisenberg diamond (octahedral) chain. The feasibility of the effective description is confirmed through the exact diagonalization and finite-temperature Lanczos methods. Both quantum spin chains display rich ground-state phase diagrams including discontinuous as well as continuous field-driven phase transitions, whereby the specific heat shows in vicinity of the former phase transitions an extraordinary low-temperature peak coming from a highly degenerate manifold of low-lying excitations.
The spin-1/2 Ising-Heisenberg branched chain composed of regularly alternating Ising spins and Heisenberg dimers involving an additional side branching is rigorously solved in a magnetic field by the transfer-matrix approach. The ground-state phase diagram, the magnetization process and the concurrence measuring a degree of bipartite entanglement within the Heisenberg dimers are examined in detail. Three different ground states were found depending on a mutual interplay between the magnetic field and two different coupling constants: the modulated quantum antiferromagnetic phase, the quantum ferrimagnetic phase, and the classical ferromagnetic phase. Two former quantum ground states are manifested in zero-temperature magnetization curves as intermediate plateaus at zero and one-half of the saturation magnetization, whereas the one-half plateau disappears at a triple point induced by a strong-enough ferromagnetic Ising coupling. The ground-state phase diagram and zero-temperature magnetization curves of the analogous spin-1/2 Heisenberg branched chain were investigated using density-matrix renormalization group calculations. The latter fully quantum Heisenberg model involves, besides two gapful phases manifested as zero and one-half magnetization plateaus, gapless quantum spin-liquid phase. The intermediate one-half plateau of the spin-1/2 Heisenberg branched chain vanishes at Kosterlitz-Thouless quantum critical point between gapful and gapless quantum ground states unlike the triple point of the spin-1/2 Ising-Heisenberg branched chain.