Journal of the Physical Society of Japan
Thermodynamics of an Impurity Coupled to a Heisenberg Chain: Density-Matrix Renormalization Group and Monte Carlo Studies
Weijie Zhang, Jun-ichi Igarashi, Peter Fulde
Abstract
By extending White's density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) technique to finite temperatures, we calculate the impurity susceptibility for the following systems: (a) a spin-1/2 impurity coupled to a single site of an antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain and (b) an impurity coupled symmetrically to the two spins at the open ends of the chain. We also perform a Monte Carlo simulation and show that the DMRG adaptation gives reliable results. The calculated impurity susceptibility shows Pauli-like behavior at low temperatures in the former case while a ln T divergence is found in the latter case, in agreement with predictions based on conformal field theory.