We study the Heisenberg-Kitaev spin chain in order to uncover the interplay between two qualitatively different integrable points in the physics of heat transport in one dimension. Focusing on high temperatures and using analytical as well as numerical approaches within linear response theory, we explore several directions in parameter space including exchange-coupling ratios, anisotropies, and external magnetic fields. We show the emergence of purely ballistic energy transport at all integrable points, manifest in pronounced Drude weights and low-frequency suppression of regular-conductivity contributions. Moreover, off integrability, we find extended quantum chaotic regions with vanishing Drude weights and well-defined dc conductivities. In the vicinity of the Kitaev point, we observe clear signatures of the topological gap in the response function. This gap coexists with a nonzero Drude weight in the Kitaev chain.
We study the Heisenberg-Kitaev spin chain in order to uncover the interplay between two qualitatively different integrable points in the physics of heat transport in one dimension. Focusing on high temperatures and using analytical as well as numerical approaches within linear response theory, we explore several directions in parameter space including exchange-coupling ratios, anisotropies, and external magnetic fields. We show the emergence of purely ballistic energy transport at all integrable points, manifest in pronounced Drude weights and low-frequency suppression of regular-conductivity contributions. Moreover, off integrability, we find extended quantum chaotic regions with vanishing Drude weights and well-defined dc conductivities. In the vicinity of the Kitaev point, we observe clear signatures of the topological gap in the response function. This gap coexists with a nonzero Drude weight in the Kitaev chain.
We use the concept of typicality to study the real-time dynamics of spin and energy currents in spin-1/2 models in one dimension and at nonzero temperatures. These chains are the integrable XXZ chain and a nonintegrable modification due to the presence of a staggered magnetic field oriented in the z direction. In the framework of linear response theory, we numerically calculate autocorrelation functions by propagating a single pure state, drawn at random as a typical representative of the full statistical ensemble. By comparing to small-system data from exact diagonalization (ED) and existing short-time data from time-dependent density matrix renormalization group, we show that typicality is satisfied in finite systems over a wide range of temperature and is fulfilled in both integrable and nonintegrable systems. For the integrable case, we calculate the long-time dynamics of the spin current and extract the spin Drude weight for large systems outside the range of ED. We particularly provide strong evidence that the high-temperature Drude weight vanishes at the isotropic point. For the nonintegrable case, we obtain the full relaxation curve of the energy current and determine the heat conductivity as a function of magnetic field, exchange anisotropy, and temperature.
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.
Integrable models such as the spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain, the Lieb-Liniger, or the one-dimensional Hubbard model are known to avoid thermalization, which was also demonstrated in several quantum-quench experiments. Another dramatic consequence of integrability is the zero-frequency anomaly in transport coefficients, which results in ballistic finite-temperature transport, despite the presence of strong interactions. While this aspect of nonergodic dynamics has been known for a long time, there has so far not been any unambiguous experimental realization thereof. We make a concrete proposal for the observation of ballistic transport via local quantum-quench experiments in fermionic quantum-gas microscopes. Such an experiment would also unveil the coexistence of ballistic and diffusive transport channels in one and the same system and provide a means of measuring finite-temperature Drude weights. The connection between local quenches and linear-response functions is established via time-dependent Einstein relations.
We investigate the coupling dependence of ballistic energy transport and the emergent spin dynamics in an integrable Hermitian three-state chain that connects a clock interaction to a highly degenerate flag limit. By constructing a regular R-matrix to establish a globally conserved energy current, we analytically evaluate its full variance to obtain the exact, strictly positive leading high-temperature coefficient of the thermal Drude weight and the ballistic growth rate of the energy-correlation second moment. In the strong-coupling limit, the degeneracy is lifted by virtual transitions of a delocalized third-color spectator state, which generates an effective spin-1/2 XXZ Hamiltonian with anisotropy Δ=−1/2 and fundamentally selects the all-active two-color sector as the true ground state. For periodic boundaries, this virtual spectator motion introduces a positive length-changing XXZ supercharge squared that, for L≥4, strictly annihilates all states within a finite, length-independent energy interval above the ground state. Consequently, we rigorously prove that the full periodic effective theory perfectly replicates the exact low-energy XXZ spectrum, including all state multiplicities, as well as its macroscopic bulk free-energy density.