Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1607.04417 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Time-dependent correlations in quantum magnets at finite temperature

Benedikt Fauseweh, Felix Groitl, T. Keller, Katharina Rolfs, D. M. Tennant, Klaus Habicht, Götz Silvester Uhrig

Published Nov 8, 2016• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Complex interactions in quantum magnets lead to a variety of phases with manifold correlations, which are measurable at temperatures very low compared to the energy scale of the system. The common expectation is that quantum effects are just suppressed upon increasing temperature due to the additional thermal fluctuations. However, recent inelastic neutron scattering investigations in one- and three-dimensional compounds indicate that interplay between quantum and thermal effects is much more complicated. By combining high-resolution neutron resonance spin-echo measurements with diagrammatic perturbation theory, the authors show that anomalous decoherence effects can also be observed in the time domain, the natural domain for decaying correlations. This offers a complementary view on this phenomenon, allowing for a direct comparison between experimental data and theoretical prediction without the need for intensive data analysis. The specific form of the echo amplitude, in combination with the temperature dependence of the spectral weight, provides a smoking gun signature for nontrivial scattering processes of hard-core bosonic excitations.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.94.180404

Related papers

Dynamic correlations in one-dimensional quantum magnets at finite temperature

Benedikt Fauseweh

In this thesis we investigate dynamical correlations of spin systems at finite temperature. Especially we focus on the anomalous decoherence effects found previously in experiments of several quantum magnets. We develop and apply a diagrammatic perturbative approach, which incorporates the hard-core bosonic nature of spin excitations. This allows for a computation of the leading low-temperature contributions to the spectral function. The Jordan-Wigner transformation is used to benchmark the approach against exact results of the XX-chain in a strong transverse field. To tackle also more complex problems and vertex corrections we combine the approach with effective models derived by continuous unitary transformations. We perform an in-depth analysis of the approach to assess its properties in the context of conserving approximations in the sense of Baym and Kadanoff. The key result of this thesis is the investigation of two quantum magnets: BaCu2V2O8 and Cu(NO3)2·2.5D2O. We show that the anomalous decoherence observed can be traced back to non-trivial scattering processes of the hard-core bosonic excitations. This indicates, that quantum coherence plays a significant rolein describing dynamical correlations, even at finite temperature. Finally we show, how additional interactions can be taken into account in the full diagrammatic approach, going beyond a mean-field decoupling.

Bulletin of the American Physical Society•Jan 1, 2016•0 citations

Temperature dependence of single particle excitations in a S=1 chain: Exact diagonalization calculations compared to neutron scattering experiments

M. Kenzelmann, Paolo Maria Santini

Exact diagonalization calculations of finite antiferromagnetic spin-1 Heisenberg chains at finite temperatures are presented and compared to a recent inelastic neutron scattering experiment for temperatures T up to $7.5$ times the intrachain exchange constant J. The calculations show that the excitations at the antiferromagnetic point $q=1$ and at $q=0.5$ remain resonant up to at least $T=2J,$ confirming the recent experimental observation of resonant high-temperature domain wall excitations. The predicted first and second moments are in good agreement with experiment, except at temperatures where three-dimensional spin correlations are most important. The ratio of the structure factors at $q=1$ and 0.5 is well predicted for the paramagnetic infinite-temperature limit. For $T<~2J,$ however, we found that the experimentally observed intensity is considerably less than predicted. This suggests that domain wall excitations on different chains interact up to temperatures of the order of the spin band width.

arXiv:cond-mat/0112219•Physical review. B, Condensed matter•Nov 27, 2002•6 citations

Multi-triplet bound states and finite-temperature dynamics in highly frustrated quantum spin ladders

A. Honecker, Frédéric Mila, Bruce Normand

Low-dimensional quantum magnets at finite temperatures present a complex interplay of quantum and thermal fluctuation effects in a restricted phase space. While some information about dynamical response functions is available from theoretical studies of the one-triplet dispersion in unfrustrated chains and ladders, little is known about the finite-temperature dynamics of frustrated systems. Experimentally, inelastic neutron scattering studies of the highly frustrated two-dimensional material ${\mathrm{SrCu}}_{2}{({\mathrm{BO}}_{3})}_{2}$ show an almost complete destruction of the one-triplet excitation band at a temperature only 1/3 of its gap energy, accompanied by strong scattering intensities for apparent multi-triplet excitations. We investigate these questions in the frustrated spin ladder and present numerical results from exact diagonalization for the dynamical structure factor as a function of temperature. We find anomalously rapid transfer of spectral weight out of the one-triplet band and into both broad and sharp spectral features at a wide range of energies, including below the zero-temperature gap of this excitation. These features are multi-triplet bound states, which develop particularly strongly near the quantum phase transition, fall to particularly low energies there, and persist all the way to infinite temperature. Our results offer valuable insight into the physics of finite-temperature spectral functions in ${\mathrm{SrCu}}_{2}{({\mathrm{BO}}_{3})}_{2}$ and many other highly frustrated spin systems.

arXiv:1605.09392•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Sep 2, 2016•13 citations

Effects of interactions on dynamic correlations of hard-core bosons at finite temperatures

Benedikt Fauseweh, Götz Silvester Uhrig

We investigate how dynamic correlations of hard-core bosonic excitation at finite temperature are affected by additional interactions besides the hard-core repulsion which prevents them from occupying the same site. We focus especially on dimerized spin systems, where these additional interactions between the elementary excitations, triplons, lead to the formation of bound states, relevant for the correct description of scattering processes. In order to include these effects quantitatively, we extend the previously developed Br\"uckner approach to include also nearest-neighbor (NN) and next-nearest neighbor (NNN) interactions correctly in a low-temperature expansion. This leads to the extension of the scalar Bethe-Salpeter equation to a matrix-valued equation. As an example, we consider the Heisenberg spin ladder to illustrate the significance of the additional interactions on the spectral functions at finite temperature, which are proportional to inelastic neutron scattering rates.

arXiv:1707.03722•Physical review. B./Physical review. B•Sep 25, 2017•2 citations

High-temperature quantum coherence of spinons in a rare-earth spin chain

Lazar Kish, Andreas Weichselbaum, Daniel M. Pajerowski +6 more

Conventional wisdom dictates that quantum effects become unimportant at high temperatures. In magnets, when the thermal energy exceeds interactions between atomic magnetic moments, the moments are usually uncorrelated, and classical paramagnetic behavior is observed. This thermal decoherence of quantum spin behaviors is a major hindrance to quantum information applications of spin systems. Remarkably, our neutron scattering experiments on Yb chains in an insulating perovskite crystal defy these conventional expectations. We find a sharply defined spectrum of spinons, fractional quantum excitations of spin-1/2 chains, to persist to temperatures much higher than the scale of the interactions between Yb magnetic moments. The observed sharpness of the spinon continuum’s dispersive upper boundary indicates a spinon mean free path exceeding ≈ 35 inter-atomic spacings at temperatures more than an order of magnitude above the interaction energy scale. We thus discover an important and highly unique quantum behavior, which expands the realm of quantumness to high temperatures where entropy-governed classical behaviors were previously believed to dominate. Our results have profound implications for spin systems in quantum information applications operating at finite temperatures and motivate new developments in quantum metrology. Thermal excitations are typically detrimental to quantum coherence. Here, using inelastic neutron scattering measurements, the authors observe a sharp spinon spectrum in the spin-1/2 chain compound YbAlO3 at temperatures well above the energy scale of spin interactions, indicating long-range quantum coherence.

arXiv:2406.16753•Nature Communications•Jul 17, 2025•5 citations

Finite-temperature line shapes of hard-core bosons in quantum magnets: A diagrammatic approach tested in one dimension

Benedikt Fauseweh, Joachim Stolze, Götz Silvester Uhrig

The dynamics in quantum magnets can often be described by effective models with bosonic excitations obeying a hard-core constraint. Such models can be systematically derived by renormalization schemes such as continuous unitary transformations or by variational approaches. Even in the absence of further interactions the hard-core constraint makes the dynamics of the hard-core bosons nontrivial. Here, we develop a systematic diagrammatic approach to the spectral properties of hard-core bosons at finite temperature. Starting from an expansion in the density of thermally excited bosons in a system with an energy gap, our approach leads to a summation of ladder diagrams. Conceptually, the approach is not restricted to one dimension, but the one-dimensional case offers the opportunity to gauge the method by comparison to exact results obtained via a mapping to Jordan-Wigner fermions. In particular, we present results for the thermal broadening of single-particle spectral functions at finite temperature. The line shape is found to be asymmetric at elevated temperatures and the bandwidth of the dispersion narrows with increasing temperature. Additionally, the total number of thermally excited bosons is calculated and compared to various approximations and analytic results. Thereby, a flexible approach is introduced that can also be applied to more sophisticated and higher dimensional models.

arXiv:1402.4359•Physical Review B•Jul 28, 2014•16 citations
Complex interactions in quantum magnets lead to a variety of phases with manifold correlations, which are measurable at temperatures very low compared to the energy scale of the system. The common expectation is that quantum effects are just suppressed upon increasing temperature due to the additional thermal fluctuations. However, recent inelastic neutron scattering investigations in one- and three-dimensional compounds indicate that interplay between quantum and thermal effects is much more complicated. By combining high-resolution neutron resonance spin-echo measurements with diagrammatic perturbation theory, the authors show that anomalous decoherence effects can also be observed in the time domain, the natural domain for decaying correlations. This offers a complementary view on this phenomenon, allowing for a direct comparison between experimental data and theoretical prediction without the need for intensive data analysis. The specific form of the echo amplitude, in combination with the temperature dependence of the spectral weight, provides a smoking gun signature for nontrivial scattering processes of hard-core bosonic excitations.
In this thesis we investigate dynamical correlations of spin systems at finite temperature. Especially we focus on the anomalous decoherence effects found previously in experiments of several quantum magnets. We develop and apply a diagrammatic perturbative approach, which incorporates the hard-core bosonic nature of spin excitations. This allows for a computation of the leading low-temperature contributions to the spectral function. The Jordan-Wigner transformation is used to benchmark the approach against exact results of the XX-chain in a strong transverse field. To tackle also more complex problems and vertex corrections we combine the approach with effective models derived by continuous unitary transformations. We perform an in-depth analysis of the approach to assess its properties in the context of conserving approximations in the sense of Baym and Kadanoff. The key result of this thesis is the investigation of two quantum magnets: BaCu2V2O8 and Cu(NO3)2·2.5D2O. We show that the anomalous decoherence observed can be traced back to non-trivial scattering processes of the hard-core bosonic excitations. This indicates, that quantum coherence plays a significant rolein describing dynamical correlations, even at finite temperature. Finally we show, how additional interactions can be taken into account in the full diagrammatic approach, going beyond a mean-field decoupling.
Exact diagonalization calculations of finite antiferromagnetic spin-1 Heisenberg chains at finite temperatures are presented and compared to a recent inelastic neutron scattering experiment for temperatures T up to 7.57.57.5 times the intrachain exchange constant J. The calculations show that the excitations at the antiferromagnetic point q=1q=1q=1 and at q=0.5q=0.5q=0.5 remain resonant up to at least T=2J,T=2J,T=2J, confirming the recent experimental observation of resonant high-temperature domain wall excitations. The predicted first and second moments are in good agreement with experiment, except at temperatures where three-dimensional spin correlations are most important. The ratio of the structure factors at q=1q=1q=1 and 0.5 is well predicted for the paramagnetic infinite-temperature limit. For T< 2J,T<~2J,T< 2J, however, we found that the experimentally observed intensity is considerably less than predicted. This suggests that domain wall excitations on different chains interact up to temperatures of the order of the spin band width.
Low-dimensional quantum magnets at finite temperatures present a complex interplay of quantum and thermal fluctuation effects in a restricted phase space. While some information about dynamical response functions is available from theoretical studies of the one-triplet dispersion in unfrustrated chains and ladders, little is known about the finite-temperature dynamics of frustrated systems. Experimentally, inelastic neutron scattering studies of the highly frustrated two-dimensional material SrCu2(BO3)2{\mathrm{SrCu}}_{2}{({\mathrm{BO}}_{3})}_{2}SrCu2​(BO3​)2​ show an almost complete destruction of the one-triplet excitation band at a temperature only 1/3 of its gap energy, accompanied by strong scattering intensities for apparent multi-triplet excitations. We investigate these questions in the frustrated spin ladder and present numerical results from exact diagonalization for the dynamical structure factor as a function of temperature. We find anomalously rapid transfer of spectral weight out of the one-triplet band and into both broad and sharp spectral features at a wide range of energies, including below the zero-temperature gap of this excitation. These features are multi-triplet bound states, which develop particularly strongly near the quantum phase transition, fall to particularly low energies there, and persist all the way to infinite temperature. Our results offer valuable insight into the physics of finite-temperature spectral functions in SrCu2(BO3)2{\mathrm{SrCu}}_{2}{({\mathrm{BO}}_{3})}_{2}SrCu2​(BO3​)2​ and many other highly frustrated spin systems.
We investigate how dynamic correlations of hard-core bosonic excitation at finite temperature are affected by additional interactions besides the hard-core repulsion which prevents them from occupying the same site. We focus especially on dimerized spin systems, where these additional interactions between the elementary excitations, triplons, lead to the formation of bound states, relevant for the correct description of scattering processes. In order to include these effects quantitatively, we extend the previously developed Br\"uckner approach to include also nearest-neighbor (NN) and next-nearest neighbor (NNN) interactions correctly in a low-temperature expansion. This leads to the extension of the scalar Bethe-Salpeter equation to a matrix-valued equation. As an example, we consider the Heisenberg spin ladder to illustrate the significance of the additional interactions on the spectral functions at finite temperature, which are proportional to inelastic neutron scattering rates.
Conventional wisdom dictates that quantum effects become unimportant at high temperatures. In magnets, when the thermal energy exceeds interactions between atomic magnetic moments, the moments are usually uncorrelated, and classical paramagnetic behavior is observed. This thermal decoherence of quantum spin behaviors is a major hindrance to quantum information applications of spin systems. Remarkably, our neutron scattering experiments on Yb chains in an insulating perovskite crystal defy these conventional expectations. We find a sharply defined spectrum of spinons, fractional quantum excitations of spin-1/2 chains, to persist to temperatures much higher than the scale of the interactions between Yb magnetic moments. The observed sharpness of the spinon continuum’s dispersive upper boundary indicates a spinon mean free path exceeding ≈ 35 inter-atomic spacings at temperatures more than an order of magnitude above the interaction energy scale. We thus discover an important and highly unique quantum behavior, which expands the realm of quantumness to high temperatures where entropy-governed classical behaviors were previously believed to dominate. Our results have profound implications for spin systems in quantum information applications operating at finite temperatures and motivate new developments in quantum metrology. Thermal excitations are typically detrimental to quantum coherence. Here, using inelastic neutron scattering measurements, the authors observe a sharp spinon spectrum in the spin-1/2 chain compound YbAlO3 at temperatures well above the energy scale of spin interactions, indicating long-range quantum coherence.
The dynamics in quantum magnets can often be described by effective models with bosonic excitations obeying a hard-core constraint. Such models can be systematically derived by renormalization schemes such as continuous unitary transformations or by variational approaches. Even in the absence of further interactions the hard-core constraint makes the dynamics of the hard-core bosons nontrivial. Here, we develop a systematic diagrammatic approach to the spectral properties of hard-core bosons at finite temperature. Starting from an expansion in the density of thermally excited bosons in a system with an energy gap, our approach leads to a summation of ladder diagrams. Conceptually, the approach is not restricted to one dimension, but the one-dimensional case offers the opportunity to gauge the method by comparison to exact results obtained via a mapping to Jordan-Wigner fermions. In particular, we present results for the thermal broadening of single-particle spectral functions at finite temperature. The line shape is found to be asymmetric at elevated temperatures and the bandwidth of the dispersion narrows with increasing temperature. Additionally, the total number of thermally excited bosons is calculated and compared to various approximations and analytic results. Thereby, a flexible approach is introduced that can also be applied to more sophisticated and higher dimensional models.