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Dynamics of Spin Helices in the 1D XX Model

Darren Pereira, Erich J. Mueller

Published Oct 12, 2021• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Motivated by cold atom experiments, we analytically study the dynamics of spin helices in the 1D XX model. Using the Jordan-Wigner transformation to map spins into fermions, we calculate the evolution of the spin helix over time. The fermions are non-interacting, with simple equations of motion. Nonetheless, the calculation is non-trivial, as the spin-helix initial condition corresponds to a highly non-equilibrium distribution of the fermions. We compare the resulting dynamics to a semiclassical model, and find qualitatively similar out-of-plane dynamics. The in-plane dynamics, however, are dramatically different. The spins decohere over time, resulting in a $t^{-1/2}$ decay of the spin-spin correlation function, which can be contrasted to exponential decay seen in recent experiments.

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Motivated by cold atom experiments, we analytically study the dynamics of spin helices in the 1D XX model. Using the Jordan-Wigner transformation to map spins into fermions, we calculate the evolution of the spin helix over time. The fermions are non-interacting, with simple equations of motion. Nonetheless, the calculation is non-trivial, as the spin-helix initial condition corresponds to a highly non-equilibrium distribution of the fermions. We compare the resulting dynamics to a semiclassical model, and find qualitatively similar out-of-plane dynamics. The in-plane dynamics, however, are dramatically different. The spins decohere over time, resulting in a t−1/2t^{-1/2}t−1/2 decay of the spin-spin correlation function, which can be contrasted to exponential decay seen in recent experiments.
Motivated by cold-atom experiments and a desire to understand far-from-equilibrium quantum transport, we analytically study the dynamics of spin helices in the one-dimensional XX\mathit{XX}XX model. We use a Jordan-Wigner transformation to map the spin chain onto a noninteracting Fermi gas with simple equations of motion. The resulting dynamics are nontrivial, however, as the spin-helix initial condition corresponds to a highly nonequilibrium distribution of the fermions. We find a separation of timescales between the in-plane and out-of-plane spin dynamics. We gain insights from analyzing the case of a uniform spin chain and from a semiclassical model. One of our key findings is that the spin correlation functions decay as ${t}^{\ensuremath{-}1/2}$ at long time, in contrast to the experimentally observed exponential decay.
Long-lived spin-helix states facilitate the study of non-equilibrium dynamics in quantum magnets. We consider the decay of transverse spin-helices in antiferromagnetic spin-SSS XXZ chains with single-ion anisostropy. The spin-helix decay is observable in the time evolution of the local magnetization that we calculate numerically for the system in the thermodynamic limit using infinite time-evolving block decimation simulations. Although the single-ion anisotropy prevents helix states from being eigenstates of the Hamiltonian, they still can be long-lived for appropriately chosen wave numbers. In case of an easy-axis exchange anisotropy the single-ion anisotropy may even stabilize the helices. Within a spin-wave approximation, we obtain a condition giving an estimate for the most stable wave number QQQ that agrees qualitatively with our numerical results.
Motivated by discrepancies between recent cold-atom experiments and the associated theory, we explore the effect of immobile holes on the quantum dynamics of $x\text{\ensuremath{-}}z$ spin helices in the one-dimensional XXXXXX model. We calculate the exact spin dynamics by mapping onto a system of noninteracting fermions, averaging over the distribution of holes. At small hole densities we find that the helical spin pattern decays exponentially, with a pitch dependence that agrees with the experiments. At large hole densities we instead find persistent oscillations. While our analytic approach does not generalize to the XXZXXZXXZ model with arbitrary anisotropies, we validate a matrix-product-state technique which might be used to model the experiments in those settings.
We propose a qubit basis composed of transverse spin helices with kinks. Unlike the usual computational basis, this chiral basis is well-suited for describing quantum states with nontrivial topology. Choosing appropriate parameters the operators of the transverse spin components, σ_{n}^{x} and σ_{n}^{y}, become diagonal in the chiral basis, which facilitates the study of problems focused on transverse spin components. As an application, we study the temporal decay of the transverse polarization of a spin helix in the XX model that has been measured in recent cold atom experiments. We obtain an explicit universal function describing the relaxation of helices of arbitrary wavelength.
We describe the dynamics of a transverse spin-helix state---a product state with spatially rotating magnetization---under XXZ spin chain evolution. Due to experimental relevance we especially focus on magnetization dynamics. At long times the U(1)U(1)U(1) symmetry of the Hamiltonian is restored, leading to the decay of transverse magnetization, which can be described as an exponential decay of a spatially harmonic profile. We show that the dependence of the short- and intermediate-time decay timescale, which in principle depends on all different parameters, like the wave vector of the initial helix, the anisotropy, etc., can be described well by a single scaling function. We also briefly discuss the evolution of magnetization current.
Interacting quantum spin models are remarkably useful for describing different types of physical, chemical, and biological systems.Significant understanding of their equilibrium properties has been achieved to date, especially for the case of spin models with short-range couplings.However, progress toward the development of a comparable understanding in long-range interacting models, in particular out-of-equilibrium, remains limited.In a recent work, we proposed a semiclassical numerical method to study spin models, the discrete truncated Wigner approximation (DTWA), and demonstrated its capability to correctly capture the dynamics of one-and two-point correlations in one-dimensional (1D) systems.Here we go one step forward and use the DTWA method to study the dynamics of correlations in two-dimensional (2D) systems with many spins and different types of long-range couplings, in regimes where other numerical methods are generally unreliable.We compute spatial and time-dependent correlations for spin-couplings that decay with distance as a power-law and determine the velocity at which correlations propagate through the system.Sharp changes in the behavior of those velocities are found as a function of the power-law decay exponent.Our predictions are relevant for a broad range of systems including solid state materials, atom-photon systems and ultracold gases of polar molecules, trapped ions, Rydberg, and magnetic atoms.We validate the DTWA predictions for small 2D systems and 1D systems, but ultimately, in the spirt of quantum simulation, experiments will be needed to confirm our predictions for large 2D systems.