We investigate the effect of a single-ion anisotropy on the bilinear-biquadratic spin-1 J1-J2 chain, focusing on the quantum phase transitions out of the trimerized phase. Using large-scale density matrix renormalization group simulations, we uncover a rich phase diagram comprising five gapped phases and, remarkably, two critical floating phases. These incommensurate Luttinger liquid phases emerge from the proliferation of non-magnetic domains - 0-states and dimers - within a trimerized background and are confined to the zero magnetization sector, while magnetic excitations remain gapped. We show that the transition between the topological Haldane phase and the floating phases are governed by a composite critical line with central charge c=2, consistent with a coexistence of magnetic and non-magnetic critical modes. Our results shed new light on the long-standing problem of the Haldane-trimerized transition.
We investigate the effect of a single-ion anisotropy on the bilinear-biquadratic spin-1 J1-J2 chain, focusing on the quantum phase transitions out of the trimerized phase. Using large-scale density matrix renormalization group simulations, we uncover a rich phase diagram comprising five gapped phases and, remarkably, two critical floating phases. These incommensurate Luttinger liquid phases emerge from the proliferation of non-magnetic domains - 0-states and dimers - within a trimerized background and are confined to the zero magnetization sector, while magnetic excitations remain gapped. We show that the transition between the topological Haldane phase and the floating phases are governed by a composite critical line with central charge c=2, consistent with a coexistence of magnetic and non-magnetic critical modes. Our results shed new light on the long-standing problem of the Haldane-trimerized transition.
The spin-3/2 chain is a versatile prototypical platform for the study of competition between different kinds of magnetic orders, with the objective of obtaining a deeper understanding of the corresponding quantum phase transitions. In this work, we investigate the spin-3/2 chain with nearest-neighbor J1, next-nearest-neighbor J2, and uniaxial single-ion anisotropy D terms in the absence of a magnetic field. For positive values of J2/J1 and D/J1, we find seven different phases in a rich phase diagram. Without frustration J2=0, a gapless Luttinger liquid phase remains stable for all D>0. As J2 increases, we observe three phases with distinct dimerized valence bond orders, which show an intricate competition with vector chiral order and incommensurate correlations. For large J2, regions of phase coexistence between the dimerized and vector chiral orders emerge. We present large-scale numerical data for the determination of transition lines, order parameters, and the nature of the phase transitions.
We investigate the properties of the Heisenberg S=1 chain with bilinear and biquadratic interactions in a magnetic field using the density- matrix renormalization-group, Bethe ansatz, and field-theoretical considerations. In a large region of the parameter space, we identify a magnetized ferroquadrupolar Luttinger liquid consisting of a quasicondensate of bound magnon pairs. This liquid undergoes a continuous pair-unbinding transition to a more conventional Luttinger liquid region obtained by polarizing the system above the Haldane gap region. This pair-unbinding transition is shown to be in the Ising universality class on top of a Luttinger liquid, leading to an effective central charge 3/2. We also revisit the nature of the partially polarized Luttinger liquid around and above the Uimin-Lai-Sutherland point. Our results confirm that this is a two-component liquid and rule out the formation of a single-component vector-chiral phase.
The interplay between competing interactions in low-dimensional quantum many-body systems gives rise to a wide variety of quantum phases and critical phenomena. Motivated by this scenario, we investigate the quantum phase diagram of the mixed-spin 1 2 , 1 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain with modulated single-ion anisotropy by means of the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. The resulting phase diagram comprises four distinct quantum phases: three gapped phases, namely the 1 / 3 magnetization plateau, the trivial nonmagnetic (TnM) phase, and the topological valence-bond-solid (TVBS) phase, together with a gapless Luttinger liquid (LL) phase. The different phases are characterized through the analysis of magnetization, spin correlation functions, nonlocal order parameters, and entanglement-based observables. The TVBS phase is identified by the presence of exponentially localized edge states, finite values of the nonlocal string order parameter and twist operator, and the characteristic degeneracy pattern of the entanglement spectrum. The boundaries of the LL phase are determined from the transverse spin correlation function and the corresponding Luttinger parameter, revealing two Kosterlitz–Thouless transition lines characterized by the critical value K c = 2.0 , in agreement with finite-size scaling analyses of the spin gap. In addition, we identify a Gaussian critical line associated with the topological quantum phase transition separating the TVBS and TnM phases. By employing the tangential finite-size scaling approach, we accurately determine this critical line by extracting the correlation-length critical exponent ν and the conformal field theory central charge c . Our results demonstrate that the competition between exchange interactions and modulated single-ion anisotropy gives rise to a rich interplay between topology, quantum criticality, and magnetic ordering, highlighting the fundamental role of these interactions in determining the ground-state properties of low-dimensional quantum spin systems.
We investigate the zero magnetization and ground state phase diagram of a spin-1/2 chain with competing ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor and antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor exchange couplings in the strongly interacting regime. Using density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulations, we discover two successive commensurate-incommensurate transitions of the nonconformal Pokrovsky-Talapov universality class, occurring even at zero magnetic field. We argue that the first transition marks the proliferation of solitonic discommensurations (kink-antikink pairs) in a critical phase with central charge c=2, emerging from a period-4 gapped phase. At the second transition, an incommensurate quadrupolar (or nematic) Luttinger liquid forms out of a gapped phase separation, via the condensation of two-magnon bound pairs. In the strongly interacting limit, the location of the two Pokrovsky-Talapov transitions can be analytically predicted with degenerate perturbation theory. Our results demonstrate that frustration alone is sufficient to drive continuous commensurate-incommensurate transitions of Mott type and stabilize complex objects with incommensurate quasi-long-range order without doping.
Recent theoretical studies raised the possibility of a realization of spin nematic states in the S=1 triangular lattice compound NiGa2S4. We study the bilinear-biquadratic spin 1 chain in a zig-zag geometry by means of the density matrix renormalization group method and exact diagonalization. We present the phase diagram focusing on antiferromagnetic interactions. Adjacent to the known Haldane--double Haldane and the extended critical phase with dominant spin nematic correlations we find a trimerized phase with a nonvanishing energy gap. We discuss results for different order parameters, energy gaps, correlation functions, and the central charge, and make connection to field theoretical predictions for the phase diagram.
We systematically study the effects of higher-order interactions on the S=23,1 orthogonal dimer chains using exact diagonalization and density matrix renormalization group. Due to frustration and higher spin, there are rich quantum phases, including three Haldane phases, two gapless phases, and several magnetically ordered phases. To characterize these phases and their phase transitions, we study various physical quantities such as energy gap, energy-level crossing, fidelity susceptibility, spin correlation, entanglement spectrum, and central charge. According to our calculations, the biquadratic term can enhance the Haldane phase regions. In particular, we numerically identify that a Haldane phase in S=23 case is adiabatically connected to the exact AKLT (Affleck, Kennedy, Lieb, and Tasaki) point when adding a bicubic term. Our study on the orthogonal dimer model, which is a 1D version of the Shastry-Sutherland model, provides insights into understanding the possible S=23,1 Haldane phases in quasi-1D and 2D frustrated magnetic materials.