This thesis investigates two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets, with a focus on the spin-
21 antiferromagnetic easy-axis XXZ model on a square and a honeycomb lattice. Describing the excitations and interactions of magnons in these models is of substantial interest, as magnons are the fundamental quasiparticles and can thus explain experimental observations. Already for the paradigmatic antiferromagnetic spin-
21 Heisenberg model on the square lattice, high-energy features of the magnon dispersion are understood via strong magnon-magnon interactions. Besides that, interesting high-energy features were recently observed in the honeycomb lattice, including a possible decay of the single-magnon mode. The goal of this thesis is to obtain effective descriptions of the aforementioned systems that capture the relevant features of the magnon excitations and their interactions. To study these features, this thesis employs continuous similarity transformations (CSTs), which enables a systematic derivation of an effective quasiparticle picture via so-called flow equations. The approach enables decoupling different magnon sectors and thus for investigating ground-state properties, single-magnon excitations, and multi-magnon bound states. The magnon description is derived from the non-Hermitian Dyson-Maleev representation, which describes fluctuations around a long-range magnetically ordered ground state. The flow equations are set up in momentum space, truncated by the scaling dimension, retaining only operators up to scaling dimension of two, and solved numerically. For the square lattice, a magnon-conserving effective Hamiltonian is obtained across the full anisotropy range by interpolating between the Ising limit and the Heisenberg limit. The ground-state energy, staggered magnetization, dispersion, and critical exponents are in excellent agreement with the literature, supporting the validity of CST also for gapped phases. Two-magnon excitations in the
Sz=0 subspace comprise four bound states, which are tracked across the anisotropy range. Their successive decay into the two-magnon continuum is determined by using the inverse participation ratio. For the honeycomb lattice, the magnon-conserving CST is reliable only up to
λ≲0.57; an adapted CST scheme that decouples only the ground state while preserving couplings between different higher-magnon sectors yields effective descriptions for all
λ and confirms stable long-range order. The low-energy properties determined in this way match the literature values. However, in the Heisenberg limit, the adapted approach fails to capture high-energy features, such as the experimentally observed decay into the multi-particle continuum at corners of the Brillouin zone. A termination of the magnon-conserving flow equations at a finite flow parameter before the divergence reveals a single-magnon decay at high energies, which is connected to a crossing of a two-magnon bound state with the single-magnon mode. The observed energy dip qualitatively agrees with Quantum Monte Carlo results, but magnon–magnon interactions are overestimated, hindering a fully quantitative characterization of the single-magnon dispersion. Analyzing multi-magnon bound states over the anisotropy range unveils that the crossing of a three-magnon bound state with the single-magnon mode accounts for the breakdown of the magnon-conserving CST at higher
λ. This work demonstrates that CST with scaling-dimension truncation provides a powerful framework for studying two-dimensional quantum magnets, capturing low-energy properties and bound states. Nevertheless, challenges remain in accurately describing high-energy features arising from a persistent overlap of magnon sectors due to strong binding effects.
In this thesis the elementary excitations of the spin-1=2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the square lattice are studied. This fundamental model is a paradigmatic example for long range ordered quantum phases and the spontaneous breaking of a continuous symmetry in condensed matter. The elementary excitations at long wavelengths are well understood by quantized spin waves, i.e., magnons, which are the gapless Goldstone bosons of the broken SU(2) symmetry. However, recent findings reveal an anomalous energy dip at short wavelengths, which cannot be explained by the conventional spin wave theory. The nature of spin waves at short wavelengths remains unclear to this day. A central aim of this thesis is the derivation of an effective magnon description for the square lattice antiferromagnet which is quantitatively valid for all length scales. For this purpose, the method of continuous unitary transformations (CUT) is extended to its use for gapless excitations. CUT methods provide a powerful tool for the derivation of effective quasi-particle descriptions by means of flow equations. However, typical approaches are truncated in real space restricting their scope of application to gapped quantum phases. In order to circumvent these limitations a CUT approach in momentum space is developed. The scaling dimension of operator terms is established as a suitable truncation criterion for gapless quasi-particles. Moreover, a diagrammatic representation of operator terms is introduced which simplifies the derivation and interpretation of flow equations in momentum space. The developed approach is used to transform the Heisenberg Hamiltonian into an effective Hamiltonian which conserves the number of magnons. In addition, effective observables required for the theoretical description of inelastic neutron scattering are derived. The initial magnon operators before the transformation are defined by the Dyson-Maleev representation which leads to a superficially non-hermitian Hamiltonian. As a result, the transformation constitutes a continuous similarity transformation (CST). This formalism enables the formulation of spin wave interactions by means of quartic boson operators. A crucial step of the transformation is the proper renormalization of the spin wave interaction which is achieved by a selfsimilar CST for scaling dimension d = 2. The resulting effective magnon description is consistent at all length scales. In particular, the magnon dispersion exhibits an energy dip at short wavelengths which is in quantitative agreement with recent numerical and experimental data. Further analysis of the spectral properties indicates a strong attraction between spin waves giving rise to a resonance in the longitudinal two-magnon channel. This resonance can be interpreted as the amplitude or Higgs mode of the continuously broken SU(2) symmetry with finite lifetime. The origin of the anomalous dispersion is ascribed to a scattering between the Higgs resonance and single magnon states. The theoretical results are directly compared with experimental data obtained by inelastic neutron scattering and various numerical results which support this view. The quantitative agreement between the effective spin wave approach and numerous numerical and experimental findings shows that magnons are a valid description of the elementary excitations at all length scales. Therefore, this thesis provides a final settlement of the question about the nature of the elementary excitations in the square lattice quantum antiferromagnet.
Despite nearly a century of study of the
S=1/2 Heisenberg model on the square lattice, there is still disagreement on the nature of its high-energy excitations. By tuning toward the Heisenberg model from the exactly soluble Ising limit, we find that the strongly attractive magnon interactions of the latter naturally account for a number of spectral features of the Heisenberg model. This claim is backed up both numerically and analytically. Using the density matrix renormalization group method, we obtain the dynamical structure factor for a cylindrical geometry, allowing us to continuously connect both limits. Remarkably, a semiquantitative description of certain observed features arises already at the lowest nontrivial order in perturbation theory around the Ising limit. Moreover, our analysis uncovers that high-energy magnons are localized on a single sublattice, which is related to the entanglement properties of the ground state.
Fractionalization remains one of the most fascinating manifestations of strong interactions in quantum many-body systems. In quantum magnetism, the existence of spinons—collective magnetic excitations that behave as quasiparticles with fractional quantum numbers—is proven in spin chains, but the criteria for their appearance in higher dimensions remain disputed. Motivated by experiments reporting the observation of spinons at high energies in the square-lattice Heisenberg antiferromagnet, we adopt the approach of extrapolating from where spinons are well defined. We study the dynamical properties of a Gutzwiller-projected wave function, the staggered-flux state, on a rectangular spin-1/2 Heisenberg lattice as a function of the spatial coupling ratio, γ = J y / J x . By studying the spectrum and the spinon separation distribution we show how, as the system evolves from one-dimensional (1D) towards 2D, the spinons become progressively more confined over most of reciprocal space, but remain deconfined at specific wave vectors.
Bulk magnetism in solids is fundamentally quantum mechanical in nature. Yet in many situations, including our everyday encounters with magnetic materials, quantum effects are masked, and it often suffices to think of magnetism in terms of the interaction between classical dipole moments. Whereas this intuition generally holds for ferromagnets, even as the size of the magnetic moment is reduced to that of a single electron spin (the quantum limit), it breaks down spectacularly for antiferromagnets, particularly in low dimensions. Considerable theoretical and experimental progress has been made in understanding quantum effects in one-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets, but a complete experimental description of even simple two-dimensional antiferromagnets is lacking. Here we describe a comprehensive set of neutron scattering measurements that reveal a non-spin-wave continuum and strong quantum effects, suggesting entanglement of spins at short distances in the simplest of all two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets, the square lattice Heisenberg system.
A key feature of the newly discovered altermagnet is that its spin degeneracy is lifted, although it has an antiferromagnetic order and zero net magnetization. In this work, we investigate a frustrated spin-1/2
J1-
J2-
δ Heisenberg model on the square lattice by the tensor network methodin combination with the linear spin-wave theory, with our focus on both the magnon excitations and longitudinal excitations.For a small
J2 and a finite range of
δ we demonstrate that such a model hosts an altermagnetic ground state. Its magnon spectrum is split into two branches and the largest splitting occurs at
(±π/2,±π/2) in the Brillouin zone. The magnitudes of splitting in the two magnon modes are equal with respect to the case of
δ=0. Dynamical spin structure factors show that the low-energy peak in the longitudinal spectral weight around
(π/2,π/2) is also split, and thus the relative positions of the magnon modes and longitudinal modes in energy may change in the presence of a finite
δ. These findings demonstrate that the altermagnets harbor more complex quantum dynamics than the conventional collinear antiferromagnets.