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arXiv:2604.12975 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Probing spinon interactions in the spin-1 bilinear-biquadratic chain

Yonatan Lin, Oleg A. Starykh, Anna Keselman

Published Oct 29, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

We study the dynamical spin and nematic correlations in the bilinear-biquadratic spin-1 chain in the critical phase hosting deconfined spinons. We demonstrate how spinon interactions can be directly probed in the presence of a magnetic field or a single-ion anisotropy. Our analytical predictions are supported by numerical matrix-product-state (MPS) simulations of the underlying microscopic model.

DOI
10.1103/p98l-7b5m

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We study the dynamical spin and nematic correlations in the bilinear-biquadratic spin-1 chain in the critical phase hosting deconfined spinons. We demonstrate how spinon interactions can be directly probed in the presence of a magnetic field or a single-ion anisotropy. Our analytical predictions are supported by numerical matrix-product-state (MPS) simulations of the underlying microscopic model.
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Antiferromagnetic spin-1 chains host the celebrated symmetry-protected topological Haldane phase, whose spin-1/21/21/2 edge states were evidenced in bulk by, e.g., electron spin resonance (ESR). To fully reveal and manipulate the spin-1/21/21/2 degree of freedom, one may build on the recent success in assembling effective spin-1 antiferromagnetic chains from nanographene and porphyrin molecules, and on the nascent technique of combined ESR and scanning tunneling microscopy, which is able to measure the spin dynamics site by site with atomic real-space resolution. In this Letter, we combine exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group to investigate the local dynamic spin structure factor of the different phases of the bilinear-biquadratic Hamiltonian with single-ion anisotropy in the presence of an external magnetic field. We find that the signature of the Haldane phase is a low-energy peak created by singlet-triplet transitions in the edge-state manifold. We predict that the signature peak is experimentally observable, although for chains of length above N=30N=30N=30 its energy should be first tuned by application of an external magnetic field. We fully characterize the peak in real space and energy, and further show its robustness to weak anisotropy and a relevant range of temperatures.
We present an extensive numerical study of spin quadrupolar correlations in single and coupled bilinear-biquadratic spin one chains, using several methods such as exact diagonalization, density matrix renormalization group, and strong coupling series expansions. For the single chain, we clarify the dominant correlation function in the enigmatic gapless period-three phase for $\ensuremath{\theta}∊(\ensuremath{\pi}∕4,\ensuremath{\pi}∕2)$, which is of spin quadrupolar nature with a period three spatial structure. Then we revisit the open problem of the possible existence of a ferroquadrupolar phase between the dimerized and the ferromagnetic phases. Although an extended critical region is in principle compatible with the numerical results, a scenario with a huge crossover scale is more plausible. Finally we study the fate of the dimerized phase upon coupling two chains in a ladder geometry. The dimerized phase rapidly vanishes and an extended gapped phase takes over. This gapped phase presumably has dominant short-ranged ferroquadrupolar correlations for $\ensuremath{\theta}∊(\ensuremath{-}3\ensuremath{\pi},4,\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\pi}∕2)$ and---surprisingly---seems to be adiabatically connected to the plaquette single solid phase of the Heisenberg S=1S=1S=1 ladder and therefore also with the Haldane phase of isolated chains.
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Higher-spin materials can host exotic quantum phases with no counterparts in familiar spin-\textonehalf{} systems. Using density matrix renormalization group calculations, the authors chart here the phase diagram of a spin-1 bilinear-biquadratic-Kitaev chain and reveal two Kitaev-driven phases. A Kitaev nematic phase emerges from a delicate biquadratic-dimer background through an Ising quantum critical point, which further evolves into a Kitaev dimer phase that spontaneously breaks screw symmetry and crystallizes into a gapped order of alternating \ensuremath{\mathbb{Z}}2{}_{2}2​ bond parities.