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Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Quantum spin chains with alternation

Henk W. J. Blöte, Jill C. Bonner

Published Aug 1, 1987• 12 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Affleck has made predictions for the critical exponents of a class of integrable spin chains of general spin $s$. The expressions are $s$ dependent. Our interest here is a finite-size scaling analysis of spin-1 systems to determine the validity of the prediction for the alternation critical exponent. We discuss these results in the light of our numerical results for the conformal anomaly $c$, the exponent $\ensuremath{\eta}$, and the mass-gap exponent associated with biquadratic exchange. The numerical results are not generally in good agreement with theory, and hence the possible presence of logarithmic corrections is discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.36.2337

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Affleck has made predictions for the critical exponents of a class of integrable spin chains of general spin sss. The expressions are sss dependent. Our interest here is a finite-size scaling analysis of spin-1 systems to determine the validity of the prediction for the alternation critical exponent. We discuss these results in the light of our numerical results for the conformal anomaly ccc, the exponent \ensuremathη\ensuremath{\eta}\ensuremathη, and the mass-gap exponent associated with biquadratic exchange. The numerical results are not generally in good agreement with theory, and hence the possible presence of logarithmic corrections is discussed.
There has recently been considerable interest in the numerical calculation of critical exponents for quantum spin chains with general spin s, stimulated by a remarkable prediction by Haldane and conformally invariant field theoretic calculations. In several instances numerical calculations have differed considerably from theoretical predictions, with misleading results. These discrepancies have generally been attributed to the presence of marginal operators resulting in logarithmic corrections which slow numerical convergence. Such phenomena seem to be ubiquitous in the area of quantum spin chains. However, until recently, no calculation was available for estimating quantitatively the expected shifts in exponent values obtained by numerical means. The purpose of this work is to call attention to such a calculation1 for the integrable Takhtajan–Babujian family of quantum spin chains, and make specific comparisons with a variety of spin chain exponents obtained numerically.2,3 Agreement with the analytic formulas is extremely good in all cases. This is an indication that finite-size scaling is a powerful tool for extracting critical exponents even in models with logarithmic corrections, provided that these corrections are taken into account in lowest order using the method of Ref. 1.
The conformal anomaly c determines the universality class of a model system in statistical mechanics. The value of c characterizes both 2D classical models and their 1D quantum counterparts. The conformal anomaly may therefore be determined numerically for quantum spin chains using the relation: E0(N)≂E0(∞)−(NΔE/12)c(1/N2), where E0 (N) is the ground-state energy of an N-spin finite system, E0 (∞) is the ground-state energy in the thermodynamic limit, and ΔE is the energy gap between the ground state at k=0 and the first excited state of the dispersion curve at k=2π/N. The numerical approach is highly successful when tested on the integrable s= 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic XXZ chain and the integrable s=1 SU(2) model. The method gives c=1 to within 2% accuracy for the s=1 and (3)/(2) XY chains, placing them in the universality class of the 2D XY model. The result c=1 (2% accuracy) is obtained for the s= (3)/(2) Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain, in agreement with the Haldane prediction. The s=1 pure antiferromagnetic biquadratic chain and the s=1 XXZ model with uniaxial anisotropy in the vicinity of the critical point Δ=Δ2 ∼1.15 −1.18 have also been studied.
The eigenenergies for the spin SSS generalization of the critical XXZ\mathrm{XXZ}XXZ model are calculated by solving numerically, for finite chains, their associated Bethe-Ansatz equations. The conformal anomaly and scaling dimensions are obtained from the conformal invariance of the infinite chain. Our results reveal that these models are governed by a conformal field theory with central charge c=3S(S+1)c=\frac{3S}{(S+1)}c=(S+1)3S​ and having continuously varying critical exponents, like the eight-vertex model. We also show that they are related to a large class of unitary conformal field theories.
Various numerical estimates of critical exponents for antiferromagnetic chains are compared with conformal field-theory predictions. Field theory allows the explicit calculation of logarithmic corrections, and hence the value of the effective exponent that is expected to be observed numerically. Comparison is made with numerically obtained exponent values, and agreement is found to be very good, even when logarithmic corrections are as large as 70%. Logarithmic corrections can lead to misleading results, for example an incorrect phase diagram, and examples in the literature where this seems to have occurred are discussed.
The authors are concerned with the critical properties of antiferromagnetic Takhtajan-Babujian models with spin S=1, 3/2 and 2. The leading eigenenergies of this Hamiltonian, in a finite chain, are calculated by investigating numerically and analytically the Bethe ansatz equations for the finite system. The critical exponents and the conformal anomaly are obtained from their relations with the eigenspectrum of the finite Hamiltonian. The appearance of logarithmic corrections produces poor estimates. However, a combination of analytical and numerical methods produces very good estimates. Their results strongly support the conjecture that the Wess-Zumino-Witten-Novikov non-linear sigma models with topological charge k=2S are the underlying field theories for these spin-S statistical mechanics models.