Impurity properties from DMRG: a thermodynamic approach.

Andreas Weichselbaum, Jan von Delft

Robert Peters

C. A. Büsser, George Balster Martins, K. A. Al-Hassanieh +1 more

Stefan Rommer, Sebastian Eggert

We use the density-matrix renormalization group for transfer matrices to numerically calculate impurity corrections to thermodynamic properties. The method is applied to two impurity models in the spin-1/2 chain, namely a weak link in the chain and an external impurity spin. The numerical analysis confirms the field theory calculations and gives explicit results for the crossover behavior.

Stefan Rommer

The density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) is a numerical method for studying low dimensional strongly correlated models. The study of these models is one of the most active areas of condensed matter physics today and has been spurred not only by the discovery of high temperature superconductivity but also by experiments on new compounds. In this thesis we study fundamentals of the density matrix renormalization group method as well as applications of the method to Heisenberg spin chains. The introductory text is meant as a brief overview of the DMRG as well as Heisenberg spin systems and provides an introduction to the papers. In papers I and II we investigate the density matrix renormalization group with the aim to better understand the underlying structure of the method. We find that if the renormalization converges to a fixed point in the thermodynamic limit, the resulting basis states can be written as a matrix product form. We also show an explicit relation of the DMRG to variational calculations using the fact that the matrix product states can be rederived through a variational ansatz without any reference to the DMRG calculation. It is then shown how the matrix product states can be used to define a set of Bloch waves for describing elementary excitations of the Heisenberg spin-1 chain. The low lying energy spectrum is calculated. In papers III and IV we investigate the thermodynamics of impurities in a spin-1/2 chain. For this purpose we have shown that a recently developed transfer matrix DMRG method can be used to calculate impurity properties. Both impurity corrections to thermodynamic properties and local properties at finite temperature can be obtained. The method gives quicker and more accurate results than quantum Monte Carlo. The numerical results show good agreement with field theory calculations for a number of impurity configurations and the cross-over function for the magnetic susceptibility from high- to low-temperature behavior shows the expected data collapse. Our results also give quantitative predictions for experiments on doped spin-1/2 chains.

Steven R. White