The antiferromagnetic spin-1 chain has a venerable history and has been thought to be well understood. Here, we show that inclusion of both next-nearest-neighbor $(\ensuremath{\alpha})$ and biquadratic $(\ensuremath{\beta})$ interactions results in a rich phase diagram with a multicritical point that has not been observed before. We study the problem using a combination of the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), an analytic variational matrix product state wave function, and conformal field theory. For negative $\ensuremath{\beta}<{\ensuremath{\beta}}^{*}$, we establish the existence of a spontaneously dimerized phase, separated from the Haldane phase by the critical line ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}_{c}(\ensuremath{\beta})$ of second-order phase transitions. In the opposite regime, $\ensuremath{\beta}>{\ensuremath{\beta}}^{*}$, the transition from the Haldane phase becomes first order into the next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) AKLT phase. Based on the field theoretical arguments and DMRG calculations, we find that these two regimes are separated by a multicritical point $({\ensuremath{\beta}}^{*},{\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{*})$ of a different universality class, described by the level-4 SU(2) Wess-Zumino-Witten conformal theory. From the DMRG calculations, we estimate this multicritical point to lie in the range $\ensuremath{-}0.2<{\ensuremath{\beta}}^{*}<\ensuremath{-}0.15$ and $0.47<{\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{*}<0.53$. We further find that the dimerized and NNN-AKLT phases are separated from each other by a line of first-order phase transitions that terminates at the multicritical point. We establish that transitions out of the Haldane phase into the dimer or NNN-AKLT phases are topological in nature and occur either with or without closing of the bulk gap, respectively. We also study short-range incommensurate-to-commensurate transitions in the resulting phase diagram. Inside the Haldane phase, we show the existence of two incommensurate crossovers: the Lifshitz transition and the disorder transition of the first kind, marking incommensurate correlations in momentum and real space, respectively. Notably, these crossover lines stretch across the entire $(\ensuremath{\beta},\ensuremath{\alpha})$ phase diagram, merging into a single incommensurate-to-commensurate transition line for negative $\ensuremath{\beta}\ensuremath{\lesssim}{\ensuremath{\beta}}^{*}$ inside the dimer phase. This behavior is qualitatively similar to that seen in classical frustrated two-dimensional spin models, by way of the quantum (1+1)D to classical 2D correspondence.
We report on a detailed investigation of the spin-$1 {J}_{1}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{2}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{J}_{3}$ Heisenberg model, a frustrated model with nearest-neighbor coupling
J1, next-nearest neighbor coupling
J2, and a three-site interaction ${J}_{3}\left[({\mathbf{S}}_{i\ensuremath{-}1}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}{\mathbf{S}}_{i})({\mathbf{S}}_{i}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}{\mathbf{S}}_{i+1})+\mathrm{H}.\mathrm{c}.\right]$ previously studied in [Phys. Rev. B 93, 241108(R) (2016)]. Using density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) and exact diagonalizations, we show that the phase boundaries between the Haldane phase, the next-nearest neighbor Haldane phase, and the dimerized phase can be very accurately determined by combining the information deduced from the dimerization, the ground-state energy, the entanglement spectrum and the Berry phase. By a careful investigation of the finite-size spectrum, we also show that the transition between the next-nearest neighbor Haldane phase and the dimerized phase is in the Ising universality class all along the critical line. Furthermore, we justify the conformal embedding of the
SU(2)2 Wess-Zumino-Witten conformal field theory in terms of a boson and an Ising field, and we explicitly derive a number of consequences of this embedding for the spectrum along the
SU(2)2 transition line between the Haldane phase and the dimerized phase. We also show that the solitons along the first-order transition line between the Haldane phase and the dimerized phase carry a spin-1/2, while the domain walls between different dimerization domains inside the dimerized phase carry a spin 1. Finally, we show that short-range correlations change character in the Haldane and dimerized phases through disorder and Lifshitz lines, as well as through the development of short-range dimer correlations in the Haldane phase, leading to a remarkably rich phase diagram.
We investigate critical phenomena of a spin-1 chain in the vicinity of the SU(3) symmetric critical point, which we already specified in a previous study [Mashiko and Nomura, Phys. Rev. B 104, 155405 (2021)]. We numerically diagonalize a Hamiltonian combining the bilinear-biquadratic Hamiltonian with the trimer Hamiltonian. We then discuss the numerical results based on the conformal field theory and the renormalization group. As a result, we first verify that the critical point found in our previous study is the tricritical point among the Haldane phase, the trimer phase, and the the trimer-liquid (TL) phase. Second, with regard to the TL-trimer transition and the TL-Haldane transition, we find that the critical phenomena around this tricritical point belong to the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless-like universality class. Third, we find the boundary between the Haldane phase and the trimer phase, which is illustrated by the massive self-dual sine-Gordon model.
The authors have identified critical points in the Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) SU(2)
5 universality class in the phase diagram of a spin-5/2 chain with frustrated next-nearest-neighbor and 3-site interactions, providing a concrete example of this universality class in a realistic, nonintegrable model. These points lie on a transition line to a dimerized phase and occur when the transition turns from first order into WZW SU(2)
3 in agreement with the generic possibilities allowed by field theory arguments.
We study spontaneous dimerization and emergent criticality in a spin-
23 chain with antiferromagnetic nearest-neighbor
J1, next-nearest-neighbor
J2, and three-site
J3 interactions. In the absence of three-site interaction
J3, we provide evidence that the model undergoes a remarkable sequence of three phase transitions as a function of
J2/J1, going successively through a critical-commensurate phase, a partially dimerized gapped phase, a critical floating phase with quasi-long-range incommensurate order, to end up in a fully dimerized phase at very large
J2/J1. In the field-theory language, this implies that the coupling constant of the marginal operator responsible for dimerization changes sign three times. For large enough
J3, the fully dimerized phase is stabilized for all
J2, and the phase transitions between the critical phases and this phase are both Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) SU(2)
3 along part of the boundary and turn first order at some point due to the presence of a marginal operator in the WZW SU(2)
3 model. By contrast, the transition between the two-dimerized phase is always first order, and the phase transitions between the partially dimerized phase and the critical phases are Kosterlitz-Thouless. Finally, we discuss the intriguing spin-
21 edge states that emerge in the partially dimerized phase for even chains. Unlike their counterparts in the spin-1 chain, they are not confined and disappear upon increasing
J2 in favor of a reorganization of the dimerization pattern.
We investigate a highly frustrated spin-1 model on the triangular lattice, with nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic $S\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}S$ interactions and nearest-neighbor ${(S\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}S)}^{2}$ interactions. Using the density matrix renormalization group technique, we find three magnetically ordered phases, namely ${120}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$ spiral order, stripe order, and tetrahedral order, as well as two spin nematic phases: ferroquadrupolar and antiferroquadrupolar. While our data could be consistent with a spin liquid phase between the ${120}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$ spiral and antiferroquadrupolar orders, the more likely scenario is a direct continuous transition between these two orders.