arXiv:1904.02102 · Journal of Physics Condensed Matter
Haldane and dimer phases in a frustrated spin chain: an exact groundstate and associated topological phase transition
Shaon Sahoo, Dayasindhu Dey, Sudip Kumar Saha, Manoranjan Kumar
Abstract
Abstract A Heisenberg spin- s chain with alternating ferromagnetic (FM) ( − J 1 F < 0 ) and antiferromagnetic ( J 1 A > 0 ) nearest-neighbor (NN) interactions, exhibits the dimer and spin-2 s Haldane phases in the limits J 1 F / J 1 A → 0 and J 1 F / J 1 A → ∞ respectively. These two phases are understood to be topologically equivalent. Induction of the frustration through the next NN FM interaction ( − J 2 F < 0 ) produces a very rich quantum phase diagram. With frustration, the whole phase diagram is divided into a FM and a nonmagnetic (NM) phase. For s = 1/2, the full NM phase is seen to be of Haldane–dimer type, but for s > 1/2, a spiral phase comes between the FM and the Haldane–dimer phases. The study of a suitably defined string-order parameter and spin-gap at the phase boundary indicates that the Haldane–dimer and spiral phases have different topological characters. We also find that, along the J 2 F = 1 2 J 1 F line in the NM phase, an NN dimer state is the exact groundstate, provided J 1 A > J C = κ J