Sufficiently dimerized quantum antiferromagnets display elementary S =1 excitations, triplon quasiparticles, protected by a gap at low energies. At higher energies, the triplons may decay into two or more triplons. A strong enough magnetic field induces Bose-Einstein condensation of triplons. For both phenomena the compound IPA-CuCl 3 is an excellent model system. Nevertheless no quantitative model was determined so far despite numerous studies. Recent theoretical progress allows us to analyse data of inelastic neutron scattering (INS) and of magnetic susceptibility to determine the four magnetic couplings J 1 ≈− 2.3 meV, J 2 ≈1.2 meV, J 3 ≈2.9 meV and J 4 ≈− 0.3 meV. These couplings determine IPA-CuCl 3 as system of coupled asymmetric S =1/2 Heisenberg ladders quantitatively. The magnetic field dependence of the lowest modes in the condensed phase as well as the temperature dependence of the gap without magnetic field corroborate this microscopic model.
In this work a perturbative realization of particle conserving continuous unitary transformations is applied to study the energies and the spectral properties of quasi one-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets. The systems considered are defined on a lattice and they allow for a perturbative decomposition. The unperturbed part is chosen to be a fully dimerized state. The groundstate is a product-state of singlets and the excitation spectrum is equidistant. The related energy quantum is called a triplon becaues it has total spin one. The continous unitary transformation leads to an effective triplon-conserving Hamiltonian and effective, experimentally relevant observables. The effective operators are obtained in a high-order series expansion in the perturbation parameters. All calculations are performed on finite clusters in real space and yield exact results in the thermodynamic limit due to the linked cluster theorem. The results are exact in the given order. In order to improve the representation of the results extrapolation techniques are used. A detailed description of extrapolation tools like standard Pade and dlogPade extrapolation, optimized perturbation theory and the use of internal parameters is given. The dimerized and frustrated spin-chain is analysed first. At zero frustration, a detailed investigation of the spectral weights shows that even in the limit of vanishing dimerization, the one-dimensional Heisenberg model, almost the total spectral weight is situated in the two-triplon sector. So, besides spinons, triplons may be used as elementary excitations for the one-dimensional Heisenberg model. The case of strong frustration is not yet settled. An extensive review of one- and two-triplon spectral densities at large and intermediate value of the dimerization for various values of the frustration is presented. The findings are compared with field theoretical results. In addition, the Raman response and the infrared absorption are investigated. Second, the antiferromagnetic two-leg Heisenberg ladder plus additional four-spin interaction is investigated. The transformation starts from the limit of isolated rung dimers. The excitations are rung-triplons. The relative energies of one-triplon states, the two-triplon bound states and the multi-triplon continua are given for various couplings. Optical observables are discussed in detail. The extent of the rung-singlet phase is calculated in the whole parameter space. It is shown that the experimental realizations of two-leg ladder systems are always situated in the rung-singlet phase. In the experimentally relevant regime, most of the spectral weight is captured by the one- and the two-triplon sector, but also three- and four-triplon contributions become sizable. The current understanding of the spectroscopic signatures of magnetic excitations in cuprate ladders measured with inelastic neutron scattering, Raman spectroscopy and infrared absorption is presented. The results obtained are compared with experimental findings. The first experimental evidence of a triplon-triplon bound state in a ladder system is found.
In this thesis the elementary excitations of the spin-1=2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet on the square lattice are studied. This fundamental model is a paradigmatic example for long range ordered quantum phases and the spontaneous breaking of a continuous symmetry in condensed matter. The elementary excitations at long wavelengths are well understood by quantized spin waves, i.e., magnons, which are the gapless Goldstone bosons of the broken SU(2) symmetry. However, recent findings reveal an anomalous energy dip at short wavelengths, which cannot be explained by the conventional spin wave theory. The nature of spin waves at short wavelengths remains unclear to this day. A central aim of this thesis is the derivation of an effective magnon description for the square lattice antiferromagnet which is quantitatively valid for all length scales. For this purpose, the method of continuous unitary transformations (CUT) is extended to its use for gapless excitations. CUT methods provide a powerful tool for the derivation of effective quasi-particle descriptions by means of flow equations. However, typical approaches are truncated in real space restricting their scope of application to gapped quantum phases. In order to circumvent these limitations a CUT approach in momentum space is developed. The scaling dimension of operator terms is established as a suitable truncation criterion for gapless quasi-particles. Moreover, a diagrammatic representation of operator terms is introduced which simplifies the derivation and interpretation of flow equations in momentum space. The developed approach is used to transform the Heisenberg Hamiltonian into an effective Hamiltonian which conserves the number of magnons. In addition, effective observables required for the theoretical description of inelastic neutron scattering are derived. The initial magnon operators before the transformation are defined by the Dyson-Maleev representation which leads to a superficially non-hermitian Hamiltonian. As a result, the transformation constitutes a continuous similarity transformation (CST). This formalism enables the formulation of spin wave interactions by means of quartic boson operators. A crucial step of the transformation is the proper renormalization of the spin wave interaction which is achieved by a selfsimilar CST for scaling dimension d = 2. The resulting effective magnon description is consistent at all length scales. In particular, the magnon dispersion exhibits an energy dip at short wavelengths which is in quantitative agreement with recent numerical and experimental data. Further analysis of the spectral properties indicates a strong attraction between spin waves giving rise to a resonance in the longitudinal two-magnon channel. This resonance can be interpreted as the amplitude or Higgs mode of the continuously broken SU(2) symmetry with finite lifetime. The origin of the anomalous dispersion is ascribed to a scattering between the Higgs resonance and single magnon states. The theoretical results are directly compared with experimental data obtained by inelastic neutron scattering and various numerical results which support this view. The quantitative agreement between the effective spin wave approach and numerous numerical and experimental findings shows that magnons are a valid description of the elementary excitations at all length scales. Therefore, this thesis provides a final settlement of the question about the nature of the elementary excitations in the square lattice quantum antiferromagnet.
We discuss the theory of the nonzero temperature
(T) spin dynamics and transport in one-dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnets with a gap $\ensuremath{\Delta}$. For $T\ensuremath{\ll}\ensuremath{\Delta}$, we develop a semiclassical picture of thermally excited particles. Multiple inelastic collisions between the particles are crucial, and are described by a two-particle
S matrix which is shown to have a superuniversal form at low momenta. This is established by computations on the
O(3) $\ensuremath{\sigma}$ model, and strong- and weak-coupling expansions (the latter using a Majorana fermion representation) for the two-leg
S=1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic ladder. As an aside, we note that the strong-coupling calculation reveals an
S=1, two-particle bound state which leads to the presence of a second peak in the
T=0 inelastic neutron-scattering (INS) cross section for a range of values of momentum transfer. We obtain exact, or numerically exact, universal expressions for the thermal broadening of the quasiparticle peak in the INS cross section, the spin diffusivity, and for the field dependence of the NMR relaxation rate
1/T1 of the effective semiclassical model; these are expected to be asymptotically exact for the quantum antiferromagnets in the limit $T\ensuremath{\ll}\ensuremath{\Delta}$. The results for
1/T1 are compared with the experimental findings of Takigawa et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 2173 (1996)] and the agreement is quite good. In the regime $\ensuremath{\Delta}<T<$(a typical microscopic exchange) and we argue that a complementary description in terms of semiclassical waves applies, and give some exact results for the thermodynamics and dynamics.
This thesis investigates two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets, with a focus on the spin-
21 antiferromagnetic easy-axis XXZ model on a square and a honeycomb lattice. Describing the excitations and interactions of magnons in these models is of substantial interest, as magnons are the fundamental quasiparticles and can thus explain experimental observations. Already for the paradigmatic antiferromagnetic spin-
21 Heisenberg model on the square lattice, high-energy features of the magnon dispersion are understood via strong magnon-magnon interactions. Besides that, interesting high-energy features were recently observed in the honeycomb lattice, including a possible decay of the single-magnon mode. The goal of this thesis is to obtain effective descriptions of the aforementioned systems that capture the relevant features of the magnon excitations and their interactions. To study these features, this thesis employs continuous similarity transformations (CSTs), which enables a systematic derivation of an effective quasiparticle picture via so-called flow equations. The approach enables decoupling different magnon sectors and thus for investigating ground-state properties, single-magnon excitations, and multi-magnon bound states. The magnon description is derived from the non-Hermitian Dyson-Maleev representation, which describes fluctuations around a long-range magnetically ordered ground state. The flow equations are set up in momentum space, truncated by the scaling dimension, retaining only operators up to scaling dimension of two, and solved numerically. For the square lattice, a magnon-conserving effective Hamiltonian is obtained across the full anisotropy range by interpolating between the Ising limit and the Heisenberg limit. The ground-state energy, staggered magnetization, dispersion, and critical exponents are in excellent agreement with the literature, supporting the validity of CST also for gapped phases. Two-magnon excitations in the
Sz=0 subspace comprise four bound states, which are tracked across the anisotropy range. Their successive decay into the two-magnon continuum is determined by using the inverse participation ratio. For the honeycomb lattice, the magnon-conserving CST is reliable only up to
λ≲0.57; an adapted CST scheme that decouples only the ground state while preserving couplings between different higher-magnon sectors yields effective descriptions for all
λ and confirms stable long-range order. The low-energy properties determined in this way match the literature values. However, in the Heisenberg limit, the adapted approach fails to capture high-energy features, such as the experimentally observed decay into the multi-particle continuum at corners of the Brillouin zone. A termination of the magnon-conserving flow equations at a finite flow parameter before the divergence reveals a single-magnon decay at high energies, which is connected to a crossing of a two-magnon bound state with the single-magnon mode. The observed energy dip qualitatively agrees with Quantum Monte Carlo results, but magnon–magnon interactions are overestimated, hindering a fully quantitative characterization of the single-magnon dispersion. Analyzing multi-magnon bound states over the anisotropy range unveils that the crossing of a three-magnon bound state with the single-magnon mode accounts for the breakdown of the magnon-conserving CST at higher
λ. This work demonstrates that CST with scaling-dimension truncation provides a powerful framework for studying two-dimensional quantum magnets, capturing low-energy properties and bound states. Nevertheless, challenges remain in accurately describing high-energy features arising from a persistent overlap of magnon sectors due to strong binding effects.
Abstract The notion of a quasiparticle, such as a phonon, a roton or a magnon, is used in modern condensed matter physics to describe an elementary collective excitation. The intrinsic zero-temperature magnon damping in quantum spin systems can be driven by the interaction of the one-magnon states and multi-magnon continuum. However, detailed experimental studies on this quantum many-body effect induced by an applied magnetic field are rare. Here we present a high-resolution neutron scattering study in high fields on an S=1/2 antiferromagnet C9H18N2CuBr4. Compared with the non-interacting linear spin–wave theory, our results demonstrate a variety of phenomena including field-induced renormalization of one-magnon dispersion, spontaneous magnon decay observed via intrinsic linewidth broadening, unusual non-Lorentzian two-peak structure in the excitation spectra and a dramatic shift of spectral weight from one-magnon state to the two-magnon continuum.