The Haldane Gap in Antiferromagnetic Heisenberg Chains

Kazuo Hida

Shoji Yamamoto

Keola Wierschem, Pinaki Sengupta

Kazuo Hida

The properties of the spin-1/2 double chain Heisenberg antiferromagnet are studied by means of the numerical diagonalization and the projector Monte Carlo simulation. The model consists of the two spin 1/2 antiferromagnetic quantum Heisenberg chains coupled with each other via the ferromagnetic interchain coupling J ′ . It is shown that the first excited state has a gap for large enough J ′ . This gap continues to the Haldane gap in the limit J ′ →∞, where spins on the different chains form triplets on each site. On the other hand, the gap decreases rapidly between J ′ =1.0 and 0.6 and is undetectable for J ′ <0.6 within the present accuracy.

Erik Schwartz Sørensen, Ian K. Affleck

The s=1 Heisenberg antiferromagnet is studied in the presence of two kinds of local impurities. First, a perturbed antiferromagnetic bond with J'\ensuremath{\ne}J at the center of an even-length open chain is considered. Using the density-matrix renormalization-group method we find that, for sufficiently strong or weak J', a bound state is localized at the impurity site, giving rise to an energy level in the Haldane gap. The energy of the bound state is in agreement with perturbative results, based on s=1/2 chain-end excitations, both in the weak- and strong-coupling limit. In a region around the uniform limit, J'=J, no states are found with energy below the Haldane gap. Second, a s=1/2 impurity at the center of an otherwise even-length open chain is considered. The coupling to the s=1/2 impurity is varied. Bound states in the Haldane gap are found only for sufficiently weak (antiferromagnetic) coupling. For a s=1/2 impurity coupled with a strong (antiferromagnetic) bond, no states are found in the Haldane gap. Our results are in good qualitative agreement with recent experiments on doped NENP and ${\mathrm{Y}}_{2}$${\mathrm{BaNiO}}_{5}$.

Jean‐Pierre Renard, Michel Verdaguer, L. P. Régnault +3 more