The thermodynamics of coupled frustrated ferromagnetic chains is studied within a spin-rotation-invariant Green's-function approach. We consider an isotropic Heisenberg spin-half system with a ferromagnetic in-chain coupling
J1<0 between nearest neighbors and a frustrating antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor in-chain coupling
J2>0. We focus on the moderate strength of frustration
J2<∣J1∣/4 such that the in-chain spin-spin correlations are predominantly ferromagnetic. We consider two interchain couplings (ICs) ${J}_{\ensuremath{\perp},y}$ and ${J}_{\ensuremath{\perp},z}$, corresponding to the two axes perpendicular to the chain, where ferromagnetic as well as antiferromagnetic ICs are taken into account. We discuss the influence of frustration on the ground-state properties for antiferromagnetic ICs, where the ground state is of a quantum nature. The major part of our study is devoted to the finite-temperature properties. We calculate the critical temperature
Tc as a function of the competing exchange couplings ${J}_{2},{J}_{\ensuremath{\perp},y},{J}_{\ensuremath{\perp},z}$. We find that for fixed ICs,
Tc decreases monotonically with increasing frustration
J2, where as ${J}_{2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}|{J}_{1}|/4$ the
Tc(J2) curve drops down rapidly. To characterize the magnetic ordering below and above
Tc, we calculate the spin-spin correlation functions $\ensuremath{\langle}{\mathbf{S}}_{0}{\mathbf{S}}_{\mathbf{R}}\ensuremath{\rangle}$, the magnetic order parameter
M, the uniform static susceptibility ${\ensuremath{\chi}}_{0}$, as well as the correlation length $\ensuremath{\xi}$. Moreover, we discuss the specific heat
CV and the temperature dependence of the excitation spectrum ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{\mathbf{q}}$. As ${J}_{2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}|{J}_{1}|/4$, some unusual frustration-induced features were found, such as an increase of the in-chain spin stiffness (in the case of ferromagnetic ICs) or of the in-chain spin-wave velocity (in the case of antiferromagnetic ICs) with growing temperature.
We studied the thermodynamics of the one-dimensional J 1 - J 2 spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain for ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor bonds J 1 < 0 and frustrating antiferromagnetic next- nearest-neighbor bonds J 2 > 0 using full diagonalization of finite rings and a second-order Green-function formalism. Thereby we focus on J 2 < | J 1 |/4 where the ground state is still ferromagnetic, but the frustration influences the thermodynamic properties. We found that their critical indices are not changed by J 2 . The analysis of the low-temperature behavior of the susceptibility χ leads to the conclusion that this behavior changes from χ ∝ T -2 at J 2 < | J 1 |/4 to χ ∝ T -3/2 at the quantum-critical point J 2 = | J 1 |/4. Another effect of the frustration is the appearance of an extra low- T maximum in the specific heat C v ( T ) for J 2 & | J 1 |/8, indicating its strong influence on the low-energy spectrum.
The partition function and spin pair correlation functions have been calculated exactly for a classical linear chain model with alternate next-nearest-neighbor (nnn) interactions, in which the interaction energies between pairs of nearest (nn) and next-nearest (nnn) neighbor spins are arbitrary functions of the angles between the relevant spins. Of special interest is the cosine interaction model described by the Hamiltonian ℋ=−ΣNi=1[J1(cosϑ2i−1,2i +cosϑ2i,2i+1)+J2cosϑ2i−1,2i+1]. When the nnn interaction is antiferromagnetic (J2<0) it competes with the nn interaction J1, and there can be disorder point(s) at which nnn correlations change from monotonic to oscillatory. The ground state is ferromagnetic when the interaction ratio r≡J2/‖J1‖ ≳−1/2=rc, but is disordered for more negative values. The disorder point locus has been determined. It terminates at zero temperature at rD=−1/21/2, at which point the ground state energy is a maximum. The result that rD differs from rc is thought to be peculiar to one-dimensional models. Over a limited range of values of r there can be two disorder points. The low temperature asymptotic behavior of the partition and correlation functions is analyzed in detail. Also a novel summation formula for spherical Bessel functions is obtained.
Two different methods of obtaining the partition function for a spin ½ open ended Ising chain with interactions between nearest and second nearest neighbour spins are presented. These are non-matrix methods, in that they do not require the diagonalization of a transfer matrix, and they provide a useful representation for studying the analytical structure of the partition function. The pair correlation functions are also derived, using the second of these methods. These correlation functions are utilized in a study of the ground state and the finite temperature spin configurations. An interesting application of these results to the problem of out-of-phase domain structure in binary alloys is discussed.
We obtain the exact physical characteristics of the triple-chain Ising model on a torus with all possible multispin interactions invariant with respect to rotation by the angle
2π/3. The exact value of the partition function in a finite cyclically closed strip of length
L, as well as the free energy, internal energy, specific heat, magnetization, susceptibility, and entropy in the thermodynamic limit at
L→∞ are found by the transfer-matrix method for the model. The spectrum of the transfer-matrix and the structure of its eigenvectors are found. For two special cases - for the model with multispin interactions of even number of spins and for the model with some interactions of two, three, four and six spins, simplified expressions of the mentioned physical characteristics are obtained; in the thermodynamic limit they are expressed through the logarithm of the root of the quadratic equation. For the model with multispin interactions of an even number of spins, a kind of pair correlations in the thermodynamic limit is found, and it is shown that the magnetization at zero magnetic field is equal to zero; the structure of the ground states of the system is found and examples of their projections of seven-dimensional space onto three-dimensional space and examples of configurations corresponding to these ground states are given. The correlation length is shown and its graphs are given. As special cases, we consider the planar triangular model with all possible interactions, including, perhaps, different triple interactions inside neighboring triangles, and the planar model with nearest-neighbor, next nearest-neighbor, and plaquette interactions. For them the main exact physical characteristics have been found. This allowed us to obtain them for the planar gonihedric model as well.
The frustrated ferromagnetic spin-
1∕2 Heisenberg chain is studied by means of a low-energy field theory as well as the density-matrix renormalization group and exact diagonalization methods. First, we study the ground-state phase diagram in a magnetic field and find an ``even-odd'' (EO) phase characterized by bound pairs of magnons in the region of two weakly coupled antiferromagnetic chains. A jump in the magnetization curves signals a first-order transition at the boundary of the EO phase, but otherwise the curves are smooth. Second, we discuss thermodynamic properties at zero field, where we confirm a double-peak structure in the specific heat for moderate frustrating next-nearest-neighbor interactions.