The ground state, magnetization curves, low-temperature thermodynamics, and heat-engine performance of the fully frustrated spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg four-leg tube with antiferromagnetic inter- and intra-plaquette coupling constants J1 and J2 are examined using exact diagonalization, density matrix renormalization group, and localized-magnon theory. In the unfrustrated to weakly frustrated regime J2/J1 << 2, the system exhibits a continuous field-driven quantum phase transition between the gapped Haldane phase and a gapless Tomonaga-Luttinger quantum spin liquid. In the highly frustrated regime J2/J1 > 2, the system contrarily displays discontinuous field-driven quantum phase transitions between the Wigner magnon crystals, which are manifested in zero-temperature magnetization curves as intermediate plateaus at zero, one-quarter, one-half, and three-quarters of the saturation magnetization. The low-temperature magnetic and thermodynamic properties in this regime are accurately captured by an effective interacting lattice-gas model of two monomer quasi-particle species constructed from localized one- and two-magnon states. Finally, we explore a quantum Stirling heat engine using the fully frustrated four-leg tube as the working medium. The work output and efficiency are strongly suppressed near discontinuous field-induced transitions and reach pronounced local maxima well inside the stability regions of the Wigner magnon crystals.
The ground state, magnetization curves, low-temperature thermodynamics, and heat-engine performance of the fully frustrated spin-1/2 Heisenberg four-leg tube with antiferromagnetic inter- and intra-plaquette coupling constants J1 and J2 are examined using exact diagonalization, density matrix renormalization group, and localized-magnon theory. In the unfrustrated to weakly frustrated regime J2/J1 << 2, the system exhibits a continuous field-driven quantum phase transition between the gapped Haldane phase and a gapless Tomonaga-Luttinger quantum spin liquid. In the highly frustrated regime J2/J1 > 2, the system contrarily displays discontinuous field-driven quantum phase transitions between the Wigner magnon crystals, which are manifested in zero-temperature magnetization curves as intermediate plateaus at zero, one-quarter, one-half, and three-quarters of the saturation magnetization. The low-temperature magnetic and thermodynamic properties in this regime are accurately captured by an effective interacting lattice-gas model of two monomer quasi-particle species constructed from localized one- and two-magnon states. Finally, we explore a quantum Stirling heat engine using the fully frustrated four-leg tube as the working medium. The work output and efficiency are strongly suppressed near discontinuous field-induced transitions and reach pronounced local maxima well inside the stability regions of the Wigner magnon crystals.
Magnetic and thermodynamic properties of the antiferromagnetic spin-1 Heisenberg diamond chain in an external magnetic field are explored using an extended localized-magnon theory complemented by exact diagonalization. We focus on the low-temperature magnetization process, thermodynamic quantities, and magnetocaloric effect in a moderately frustrated regime, where the system hosts a rich variety of unconventional quantum phases including the uniform and cluster-based Haldane states, the fully fragmented monomer-dimer phase, and the bound-magnon crystal preceding the full magnetic saturation. The localized-magnon approach elaborated in our recent work is extended here to account for the uniform Haldane phase, thereby allowing the lattice-gas description to be generalized from the highly frustrated to the moderately frustrated regime. The resulting monomer-dimer lattice-gas model captures anomalous features of the magnetization, susceptibility, entropy, specific heat, and magnetic Grüneisen parameter near field-driven transitions between the quantum phases manifested as zero, one-sixth, one-third, and two-thirds magnetization plateaus.
The spin-1/2 Heisenberg octahedral chain with regularly alternating monomeric and square-plaquette sites is investigated using various analytical and numerical methods: variational technique, localized-magnon approach, exact diagonalization (ED) and density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. The model belongs to the class of flat-band systems and it has a rich ground-state phase diagram including phases with spontaneously broken translational symmetry. Moreover, it exhibits an anomalous low-temperature thermodynamics close to continuous or discontinuous field-driven quantum phase transitions between three quantum ferrimagnetic phases, tetramer-hexamer phase, monomer-tetramer phase, localized-magnon phase and two different spin-liquid phases. If the intra-plaquette coupling is at least twice as strong as the monomer-plaquette coupling, the variational method furnishes a rigorous proof of the monomer-tetramer ground state in a low-field region and the localized-magnon approach provides an exact evidence of a single magnon trapped at each square plaquette in a high-field region. In the rest of parameter space we have numerically studied the ground-state phase diagram and magnetization process using DMRG and ED methods. It is shown that the zero-temperature magnetization curve may involve up to four intermediate plateaus at zero, one-fifth, two-fifth and three-fifth of the saturation magnetization, while the specific heat exhibits a striking low-temperature peak in a vicinity of discontinuous quantum phase transitions.
The mixed spin-1 and spin-1/2 Heisenberg octahedral chain with regularly alternating monomeric spin-1 sites and square-plaquette spin-1/2 sites is investigated using a variational technique, localized-magnon approach, exact diagonalization, and density-matrix renormalization-group method. The investigated model has, in a magnetic field, an extraordinarily rich ground-state phase diagram, which includes the uniform and cluster-based Haldane phases, two ferrimagnetic phases of Lieb-Mattis type, two quantum spin liquids, two bound magnon crystals, in addition to the fully polarized ferromagnetic phase. The lowest-energy eigenstates in a highly frustrated parameter region belong to flatbands and, hence, low-temperature thermodynamics above the bound magnon-crystal ground states can be satisfactorily described within the localized-magnon approach. The variational method provides exact evidence for the magnon-crystal phase with a character of the monomer-tetramer ground state at zero field, whereas another magnon-crystal phase with a single bound magnon at each square plaquette is found in a high-field region. A diversity of quantum ground states gives rise to manifold zero-temperature magnetization curves, which may involve up to four wide intermediate plateaus at zero, one-sixth, one-third, and two-thirds of the saturation magnetization, two quantum spin-liquid regions, and two tiny plateaus at one-ninth and one-twelfth of the saturation magnetization corresponding to the fragmentized cluster-based Haldane phases.
The spin-21 Heisenberg octahedral chain with regularly alternating monomeric and square-plaquette sites is investigated using various analytical and numerical methods: variational technique, localized-magnon approach, exact diagonalization (ED), and density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) methods. The model belongs to the class of flatband systems and it has a rich ground-state phase diagram including phases with spontaneously broken translational symmetry. Moreover, it exhibits an anomalous low-temperature thermodynamics close to continuous or discontinuous field-driven quantum phase transitions between three quantum ferrimagnetic phases, tetramer-hexamer phase, monomer-tetramer phase, localized-magnon phase, and two different spin-liquid phases. If the intraplaquette coupling is at least twice as strong as the monomer-plaquette coupling, the variational method furnishes a rigorous proof of the monomer-tetramer ground state in a low-field region and the localized-magnon approach provides exact evidence of a single magnon trapped at each square plaquette in a high-field region. In the rest of the parameter space we have numerically studied the ground-state phase diagram and magnetization process using DMRG and ED methods. It is shown that the zero-temperature magnetization curve may involve up to four intermediate plateaus at zero, one-fifth, two-fifths, and three-fifths of the saturation magnetization, while the specific heat exhibits a striking low-temperature peak in the vicinity of discontinuous quantum phase transitions.
We study the ground-state phase diagram of a frustrated spin-1/2 four-leg tube. Using a variety of complementary techniques, namely, density matrix renormalization group, exact diagonalization, Schwinger boson mean-field theory, quantum Monte Carlo, and series expansion, we explore the parameter space of this model in the regime of all-antiferromagnetic exchange. In contrast to unfrustrated four-leg tubes, we uncover a rich phase diagram. Apart from the Luttinger liquid fixed point in the limit of decoupled legs, this comprises several gapped ground states, namely, a plaquette, an incommensurate, and an antiferromagnetic quasispin-2 chain phase. The transitions between these phases are analyzed in terms of total energy and static structure factor calculations and are found to be of (weak) first order. Despite the absence of long-range order in the quantum case, remarkable similarities to the classical phase diagram are uncovered, with the exception of the icommensurate regime, which is strongly renormalized by quantum fluctuations. In the limit of large leg exchange, the tube exhibits a deconfinement crossover from gapped magnon-like excitations to spinons.
Low-temperature magnetization curves and thermodynamics of a frustrated spin-21 Heisenberg triangular bilayer with the antiferromagnetic intradimer interaction and either ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic interdimer interaction are investigated in a highly frustrated parameter region, where localized many-magnon eigenstates provide the most dominant contribution to magnetothermodynamics. Low-energy states of the highly frustrated spin-21 Heisenberg triangular bilayer can be accordingly found from a mapping correspondence with an effective triangular-lattice spin-21 Ising model in a field. A description based on the effective Ising model implies that the frustrated Heisenberg triangular bilayer with the ferromagnetic interdimer coupling displays in a zero-temperature magnetization curve discontinuous magnetization jump, which is reduced upon increasing of temperature until a continuous field-driven phase transition from the Ising universality class is reached at a certain critical temperature. The frustrated Heisenberg triangular bilayer with the antiferromagnetic interdimer coupling contrarily exhibits multistep magnetization curve with intermediate plateaus at 31 and 32 of the saturation magnetization, whereas discontinuous magnetization jumps observable at zero temperature change to continuous field-driven phase transitions from the universality class of three-state Potts model at sufficiently low temperatures. Exact results and Monte Carlo simulations of the effective Ising model are confronted with full exact diagonalization data for the Heisenberg triangular bilayer in order to corroborate these findings.