The spin-1/2 Ising-Heisenberg branched chain, inspired by the magnetic structure of three isostructural polymeric coordination compounds [(Tp)2Fe2(CN)6X (bdmap)Cu2(H2O)] ⋅ H2O to be further denoted as Fe2Cu2 (Tp = tris(pyrazolyl)hydroborate, bdmapH = 1,3-bis(dimethylamino)-2-propanol, HX = acetic acid, propionic acid or trifluoroacetic acid), is rigorously studied using the transfer-matrix method. The overall ground-state phase diagram reveals three distinct phases: a quantum antiferromagnetic phase, a quantum ferrimagnetic phase and a classical ferromagnetic phase. In the zero-temperature magnetization curve, two quantum ground states are manifested as intermediate plateaus at zero and half of the saturation magnetization, while the magnetization reaches its saturated value within the classical ferromagnetic phase. The bipartite entanglement between nearest-neighbor Heisenberg spins is more pronounced in the quantum ferrimagnetic phase compared to the quantum antiferromagnetic phase due to a fully polarized nature of the Ising spins. A reasonable agreement between theoretical predictions for the spin-1/2 Ising-Heisenberg branched chain and experimental data measured for a temperature dependence of the magnetic susceptibility and a low-temperature magnetization curve suggests strong antiferromagnetic coupling between nearest-neighbor Cu2+-Cu2+ magnetic ions and moderately strong ferromagnetic coupling between nearest-neighbor Cu2+-Fe3+ magnetic ions in the polymeric compounds Fe2Cu2. A thermal entanglement between nearest-neighbor Cu2+-Cu2+ magnetic ions persists up to a relatively high threshold temperature T ≈ 224 K and undergoes a transient magnetic-field-driven strengthening.
The mixed-spin Ising-Heisenberg and Heisenberg branched chains whose magnetic backbone consists of regularly alternating spins 1/2 and 5/2, the latter of which are additionally coupled to an extra spin 1/2 providing lateral branching, are investigated using exact analytical and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) methods. The proposed spin-chain models capture some relevant aspects of the heterotrimetallic coordination polymer $[\mathrm{Cu}\mathrm{Mn}(\mathrm{L})][\mathrm{Fe}(\mathrm{bpb}){(\mathrm{CN})}_{2}]\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}\mathrm{Cl}{\mathrm{O}}_{4}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}{\mathrm{H}}_{2}\mathrm{O}$. The mixed spin-
(1/2,5/2,1/2) Ising-Heisenberg branched chain is exactly solvable under the assumption of an Ising-like exchange coupling along the chain, while the lateral branching is treated as an anisotropic
XXZ Heisenberg exchange interaction. We determine the ground-state phase diagram and quantify a bipartite quantum entanglement between dimers at lateral branching. It is shown that the studied mixed-spin Ising-Heisenberg branched chain accurately fits available experimental data for temperature dependence of the magnetic susceptibility. The ground-state phase diagram of the analogous mixed spin-
(1/2,5/2,1/2) Heisenberg branched chain is obtained within the DMRG method. The ground-state phase diagrams of the Ising-Heisenberg and its full Heisenberg counterpart are contrasted. In particular, the ground-state phase diagram of the mixed-spin Heisenberg branched chain involves a special Gaussian critical point, for which a proper finite-size scaling analysis is provided to accurately estimate its location and the correlation length critical exponent.
Quantum spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg trimerized chain with strong intradimer and weak monomer-dimer coupling constants is studied using the many-body perturbation expansion developed about the exact solution of the spin-1/2 Ising-Heisenberg diamond chain. The Heisenberg trimerized chain shows the intermediate one-third plateau, which was also observed in the magnetization curve of the polymeric compound Cu
3(P
2O
6OH)
2 affording its experimental realization. Within the strong-coupling method we have obtained the effective Hamiltonians for the magnetic-field range from zero to one-third plateau, and from one-third plateau to the saturation magnetization. The second-order perturbation theory shows reliable results even for the moderate ratio between weaker dimer-monomer and stronger intradimer coupling constants. We have also examined thermodynamic properties and recovered the low-temperature peak in the specific heat. The accuracy of the developed method is tested through a comparison with numerical density-matrix renormalization group and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Using the results for the effective Hamiltonian we suggest straightforward procedure for finding the microscopic parameters of one-dimensional trimerized magnetic compounds with strong intradimer and weak monomer-dimer couplings. We found the refined values for the coupling constants of Cu
3(P
2O
6OH)
2 by matching the theoretical results with the available experimental data for the magnetization and magnetic susceptibility in a wide range of temperatures and magnetic fields.