We investigate Bethe Ansatz equations for the one-dimensional spin-
21 Heisenberg XXX chain with a special interest in a finite system. Solutions for the two-particle sector are obtained. The ground state in antiferromagnetic case has been analytically studied through the logarithmic form of Bethe Ansatz equations.
We examine the question of whether Bethe's ansatz reproduces all states in the periodic Heisenberg XXZ and XXX spin chains. As was known to Bethe himself, there are states for which the Bethe momenta
kn diverge: these are in fact the simplest examples of ``string'' solutions. The coefficients of the Bethe wavefunction, too, diverge. When there are only two down spins in the system (the case considered by Bethe), we can renormalize these coefficients to get a sensible (and correct) wavefunction. We show that this is not always possible when there are more than two down spins. The Bethe equations have several such divergent solutions, and some of these correspond to genuine eigenfunctions of the Hamiltonian, but several do not. Nor do they reproduce the correct energy eigenvalues. Moreover, we point out that the algebraic Bethe ansatz, an alternative way to construct the wavefunctions proposed by Faddeev, Takhtajan et al., leads to vanishing wavefunctions for all these solutions. Thus, the Bethe ansatz solution of the Heisenberg model must be regarded as either incomplete, or inaccurate.
The authors analyse the Bethe ansatz equations for the two-particle sector of the spin 1/2 Heisenberg XXX model on a one-dimensional lattice of length N. They show that, beginning at a critical lattice length of N=21.86, new pairs of real solutions develop, whereas complex solutions start to disappear. The integers (that appear in the logarithmic form of the Bethe equations) of the new solutions do not fit into the conventional classification scheme. The total number of solutions in the two-particle sector remains unchanged and is in agreement with the claim that the SU(2) extended Bethe ansatz gives a complete set of 2 N eigenstates.