Non-static effects in ordered and disordered quantum spin systems I: theoretical formulation, energy gap and non-extensive terms of ground-state energy of the ferromagnetic Ising model in a transverse field
In the path integral formulation of the partition function of quantum spin models, most current treatments employ the so-called static approximation to simplify the process of summing over all possible paths. Although sufficient for studying the thermodynamic aspects of the system, static approximation ignores the contributions made by time-dependent, or non-static, fluctuations in the paths of the path integral. This non-static component is very small relative to the static part, and its careful treatment is necessary for the calculation of small non-extensive quantities such as the energy gap within the path integral framework. We propose a formalism for incorporating non-static effects into the path integral calculation of a class of spin models whose partition functions are reducible to the trace of a single spin (often known as the effective Hamiltonian). We first show that the time-dependent behavior of the single spin trace is governed by the Pauli equation. Time-dependent perturbation theory is used to obtain a perturbative expansion of the solution of the Pauli equation, and then for the single spin trace. This gives us a perturbative expansion of the path integral which can be integrated systematically using standard techniques. In this paper, we develop the theoretical framework outlined above in detail and apply it to a simple ordered spin model, the infinite-range ferromagnetic Ising model in a transverse field. We calculated two non-extensive quantites with this non-static approach: the $N^0$ and $N^{-1}$ terms of the ground-state energy ($N$=number of spins) and the energy gap between the ground and first-excited states. We checked our results by comparing with those of Holstein-Primakoff transform and numerical diagonalization of the Hamiltonian. The application of the method to quantum spin-glasses is briefly discussed.
In the path integral formulation of the partition function of quantum spin models, most current treatments employ the so-called static approximation to simplify the process of summing over all possible paths. Although sufficient for studying the thermodynamic aspects of the system, static approximation ignores the contributions made by time-dependent, or non-static, fluctuations in the paths of the path integral. This non-static component is very small relative to the static part, and its careful treatment is necessary for the calculation of small non-extensive quantities such as the energy gap within the path integral framework. We propose a formalism for incorporating non-static effects into the path integral calculation of a class of spin models whose partition functions are reducible to the trace of a single spin (often known as the effective Hamiltonian). We first show that the time-dependent behavior of the single spin trace is governed by the Pauli equation. Time-dependent perturbation theory is used to obtain a perturbative expansion of the solution of the Pauli equation, and then for the single spin trace. This gives us a perturbative expansion of the path integral which can be integrated systematically using standard techniques. In this paper, we develop the theoretical framework outlined above in detail and apply it to a simple ordered spin model, the infinite-range ferromagnetic Ising model in a transverse field. We calculated two non-extensive quantites with this non-static approach: the N0 and N−1 terms of the ground-state energy (N=number of spins) and the energy gap between the ground and first-excited states. We checked our results by comparing with those of Holstein-Primakoff transform and numerical diagonalization of the Hamiltonian. The application of the method to quantum spin-glasses is briefly discussed.
In current studies of mean-field quantum spin systems, much attention is placed on the calculation of the ground-state energy and the excitation gap, especially the latter, which plays an important role in quantum annealing. In pure systems, the finite gap can be obtained by various existing methods such as the Holstein-Primakoff transform, while the tunneling splitting at first-order phase transitions has also been studied in detail using instantons in many previous works. In disordered systems, however, it remains challenging to compute the gap of large-size systems with specific realization of disorder. Hitherto, only quantum Monte Carlo techniques are practical for such studies. Recently, Knysh [Nature Comm. 7, 12370 (2016)] proposed a method where the exponentially large dimensionality of such systems is condensed onto a random potential of much lower dimension, enabling efficient study of such systems. Here we propose a slightly different approach, building upon the method of static approximation of the partition function widely used for analyzing mean-field models. Quantum effects giving rise to the excitation gap and nonextensive corrections to the free energy are accounted for by incorporating dynamical paths into the path integral. The time-dependence of the trace of the time-ordered exponential of the effective Hamiltonian is calculated by solving a differential equation perturbatively, yielding a finite-size series expansion of the path integral. Formulae for the first excited-state energy are proposed to aid in computing the gap. We illustrate our approach using the infinite-range ferromagnetic Ising model and the Hopfield model, both in the presence of a transverse field.
We develop a mean-field theory for random quantum spin systems using the spin coherent state path integral representation. After the model is reduced to the mean-field one-body Hamiltonian, the integral is analyzed with the aid of several methods such as the semiclassical method and the gauge transformation. As an application we consider the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick model in a transverse field. Using the Landau expansion and its improved versions, we give a detailed analysis of the imaginary-time dependence of the order parameters. Integrating out the quantum part of the order parameters, we obtain the effective renormalized free energy written in terms of the classically defined order parameters. Our method allows us to obtain the spin glass-paramagnetic phase transition point $\ensuremath{\Gamma}∕J\ensuremath{\sim}1.62$ at T=0.
This thesis aims at a description of the equilibrium dynamics of quantum spin glass systems. To this end a generic fermionic SU(2), spin 1/2 spin glass model with infinite-range interactions is defined in the first part. The model is treated in the framework of imaginary-time Grassmann field theory along with the replica formalism. A dynamical two-step decoupling procedure, which retains the full time dependence of the (replica-symmetric) saddle point, is presented. As a main result, a set of highly coupled self-consistency equations for the spin-spin correlations can be formulated. Beyond the so-called spin-static approximation two complementary systematic approximation schemes are developed in order to render the occurring integration problem feasible. One of these methods restricts the quantum-spin dynamics to a manageable number of bosonic Matsubara frequencies. A sequence of improved approximants to some quantity can be obtained by gradually extending the set of employed discrete frequencies. Extrapolation of such a sequence yields an estimate of the full dynamical solution. The other method is based on a perturbative expansion of the self-consistency equations in terms of the dynamical correlations. In the second part these techniques are applied to the isotropic Heisenberg spin glass both on the Fock space (HSGF) and, exploiting the Popov-Fedotov trick, on the spin space (HSGS). The critical temperatures of the paramagnet to spin glass phase transitions are determined accurately. Compared to the spin-static results, the dynamics causes slight increases of T_c by about 3% and 2%, respectively. For the HSGS the specific heat C(T) is investigated in the paramagnetic phase and, by way of a perturbative method, below but close to T_c. The exact C(T)-curve is shown to exhibit a pronounced non-analyticity at T_c and, contradictory to recent reports by other authors, there is no indication of maximum above T_c. In the last part of this thesis the spin glass model is augmented with a nearest-neighbor hopping term on an infinite-dimensional cubic lattice. An extended self-consistency structure can be derived by combining the decoupling procedure with the dynamical CPA method. For the itinerant Ising spin glass numerous solutions within the spin-static approximation are presented both at finite and zero temperature. Systematic dynamical corrections to the spin-static phase diagram in the plane of temperature and hopping strength are calculated, and the location of the quantum critical point is determined.
An expansion for the free energy functional of quantum spin models is build around diagonalisable single-ion term of the system’s Hamiltonian. This expansion is obtained within the Matsubara time formalism by introducing recursive relations involving the spin correlation functions. Introduction Spin glass systems (SG) are collections of atoms or molecules with randomly distributed magnetic moments and frustrated interactions. They have gained much attentions of the scientific community since the seminal work by Edwards and Anderson [1]. Physical concepts and mathematical tools developed in the contest of SG are applicable not only in physics but also in biology, economy, informatics, e.g. in the study of optimization theory and neural networks. In quantum spin glass models with infinite-range interactions attention has been paid to description of the transition between disordered (paramagnetic) and ordered spin glass phases. However, even an approximate description of the phase change involves an expansion of the free energy functional in terms of the powers of the order parameters. In this work we present a method to built such an expansion in a systematic way. The general formulation requires that the Hamiltonian H of the system of interacting spins is composed of two parts: a single-site part H0 and an exchange, two-site part H1. The single-site term may represent an external magnetic field or single-ion anisotropies. The exchange two-site term we use is the quantum Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) model [2]: ∑∑ ≠ − = α α α N j i j i ij S S J H 2 1 1 (1) where α i S are the spin operators Pauli matrices referred to the spin i of an ensemble of N spins z y x , , = α and . , , 1 N i = The random exchange interactions Please cite this article as: Zbigniew Domanski, An effective expansion for the free energy of quantum spin glass models with infinite-range interactions, Scientific Research of the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, 2009, Volume 8, Issue 2, pages 37-42. The website: http://www.amcm.pcz.pl/ Z. Domanski 38 { } ij J are governed by independent probability distributions taken to be Gaussian with zero mean and variance . / 1 N 1. Free energy In order to obtain the free energy averaged over the distribution of { } ij J we apply the replica trick and Matsubara ”time” representation [3]. The replica trick is used to overcome the difficulties of averaging a logarithm and it employs the identity [ ] [ ] ( ) n Z Z J n n J 1 lim ln 0 − = → (2) where [ ]J means an averaging over the random exchange interactions ij J . The Matsubara ”time” representation is based on the operator identity ( ) ( ) ( )( ) [ ] ( ) A t B A t t tA B d T t t 0 0 exp exp exp exp 0 ⋅ + − ⋅ − = ∫ τ τ τ (3) ( ) ( ) ( ) tA B tA t B exp exp ⋅ ⋅ − = (4) Here the time ordering operator τ T rearranges the operator in the expansion of the exponential, in order of decreasing time arguments. This representation enables us to avoid the problem of the non-commutativity of the spin operators α S and to treat them as numbers. Applying (2)-(4) to the Hamiltonian (1) the replica free energy has the following form [4, 5] ( ) [ ] ( ) ∫ ∫ = Φ ⋅ = eff 0 Tr ln exp Tr ln H q H q e Dz T e Dz F τ (5) 3 2 1 Φ + Φ + Φ = Φ q z (6) ( ) ∫ ∑ = Φ 1 0 1 2 n n S d τ τ β (7) ( ) ( ) ∫ ∫ ∑ ′ ⋅ ′ − = Φ 1 0 1 0 , 2 m n m n S S d d τ τ τ τ β (8) ( ) ( ) ( ) ∫ ∫ ∑ ′ ′ ′ = Φ 1 0 1 0 3 , n n n S R S d d τ τ τ τ τ τ β (9) An effective expansion for the free energy of quantum spin glass models with infinite-range interactions 39 where T / 1 = β is the inverse temperature and the integration in Eq. (5) is over the field: ( ) ( ) − = 2 / / exp / 2 1 2 q z q z d Dzq π (10) In Equations (5)-(10), the quantity q is the Edwards-Anderson spin glass order parameter and ( ) τ τ ′ , R is the dynamic spin self-interaction. ( ) τ τ ′ , R describes the quantum fluctuations. The spin glass order parameter vanishes in the paramagnetic (disordered) phase whereas the dynamic spin self-interaction persists in both phases. In order to locate the phase change one needs to expand the free energy functional as a series in power of q. The phase transition takes place when the coefficient of 2 q becomes zero as a function of the temperature T and thus, one of the most useful information can be retrieve from an expansion of the functional F, Eqs. (5-9). 2. An expansion Consider the free energy F given by Equations (5)-(10). Using these equations we can compute the thermal average with respect to the effective Hamiltonian eff H defined in the exponent of Eq. (5). We denote this thermal average by the angular bracket, namely: ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) Φ Φ τ τ τ τ τ τ τ exp Tr exp Tr 0 1 0 1 1 eff 1 T e S S T e S S T H p n n H p n n p p ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ = (11) From Eq. (10) we see that ( ) ( ) q q Dz z Dz q ν ν ν ν ν 2 2 2 ∂ ∂ = ∂ ∂ − (12) Using Eqs. (11) and (12) we can compute the first derivative of F with respect to the order parameter q. First, we do this by direct computation. Direct computation involves the straightforward evaluation of multiple thermal averages of Eq. (11). ( ) ( ) [ ] ( ) [ ] ∫ ∫ + + ⋅ ∂ + ⋅ ∂ = ∂ 3 2 1 exp Tr ln exp Tr ln
On the basis of the effective Hamiltonian method the static properties of the transverse Ising model with substitutional disorder have been investigated. By a perturbation expansion of the density matrix the self-consistent equation for the effective field is obtained in an analytical form. The transition temperature and the susceptibility etc. are derived from the partition function and numerically calculated. It is shown that for the diluted systems this approximation gives much lower transition temperatures and higher critical concentrations than the simple ones previously derived. In the two-component system with a strong transverse field a finite critical concentration is predicted in contrast to the previous studies. The application of this approximation to the “pseudo” one-dimensional systems having weak interchain correlations is also discussed.
Langevin equations for the relaxation of spin fluctuations in a soft-spin version of the Edwards-Anderson model are used as a starting point for the study of the dynamic and static properties of spin-glasses. An exact uniform Lagrangian for the average dynamic correlation and response functions is derived for arbitrary range of random exchange, using a functional-integral method proposed by De Dominicis. The properties of the Lagrangian are studied in the mean-field limit which is realized by considering an infinite-ranged random exchange. In this limit, the dynamics are represented by a stochastic equation of motion of a single spin with self-consistent (bare) propagator and Gaussian noise. The low-frequency and the static properties of this equation are studied both above and below Tc. Approaching Tc from above, spin fluctuations slow down with a relaxation time proportional to ${|T\ensuremath{-}{T}_{c}|}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$ whereas at Tc the damping function vanishes as ${\ensuremath{\omega}}^{\frac{1}{2}}$. We derive a criterion for dynamic stability below Tc. It is shown that a stable solution necessarily violates the fluctuation-dissipation theorem below Tc. Consequently, the spin-glass order parameters are the time-persistent terms which appear in both the spin correlations and the local response. This is shown to invalidate the treatment of the spin-glass order parameters as purely static quantities. Instead, one has to specify the manner in which they relax in a finite system, along time scales which diverge in the thermodynamic limit. We show that the finite-time correlations decay algebraically with time as ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\nu}}$ at all temperatures below Tc, with a temperature-dependent exponent $\ensuremath{\nu}$. Near Tc, $\ensuremath{\nu}$ is given (in the Ising case) as $\ensuremath{\nu}(T)\ensuremath{\sim}\frac{1}{2}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}(\frac{1\ensuremath{-}T}{{T}_{c}})+\ensuremath{\sigma}{(\frac{1\ensuremath{-}T}{{T}_{c}})}^{2}$. A tentative calculation of $\ensuremath{\nu}$ at T=0 K is presented. We briefly discuss the physical origin of the violation of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem.