Abstract There has been great interest recently in quantum spin chains with S = 1. Much of this work was stimulated by Haldane’s (1983a, b) discussion of the isotropic Heisenberg model for which he predicted the existence of a disordered ground state (i.e. one in which the correlations decay exponentially) and a gap to the first excited state at k = n. We consider a system with isotropic Heisenberg and biquadratic exchange, and a magnetic field, described by the Hamiltonian.
Abstract There has been great interest recently in quantum spin chains with S = 1. Much of this work was stimulated by Haldane’s (1983a, b) discussion of the isotropic Heisenberg model for which he predicted the existence of a disordered ground state (i.e. one in which the correlations decay exponentially) and a gap to the first excited state at k = n. We consider a system with isotropic Heisenberg and biquadratic exchange, and a magnetic field, described by the Hamiltonian.
Since the Heisenberg spin chain can be considered the simplest realistic model of magnetism, surprise and some degree of controversy have resulted from recent work of Haldane. The prediction is that quantum spin chains with half-integer spin should all display T=0 phase behavior equivalent to that of the Bethe Ansatz integrable (solvable) spin-1/2 quantum chain. More remarkably, the class of integer spin chains is predicted to show very different phase behavior. In particular, a gap should be present in the spectrum of a Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain. This remarkable feature is counterintuitive in terms of accepted wisdom in magnetism (spin-wave theory, spin-Peierls theory) and critical phenomena. Consequently the vertification of the prediction is of great interest. A considerable amount of numerical work has been done, involving finite-chain, finite-size scaling, variational, Monte Carlo and other calculations, which will be reviewed here. The present consensus is that the weight of numerical evidence supports the prediction, although puzzling features still remain. Adding additional interactions to the basic Heisenberg Hamiltonian such as spin (XXZ) anisotropy, single-ion anisotropy, biquadratic exchange, and an applied magnetic field, generates a rich and complicated phase diagram for chains with spin >1/2, particularly for the case of integer spin. The s=1 phase diagram seems to display critical behavior of a type not previously encountered. A theoretical appraisal of the Haldane phenomenon will include a discussion of the possible role of nonintegrability. Mention will also be made of current progress in experimental investigation of the phenomenon, including problems that might be encountered. More recent work of Affleck has greatly generalized the field-theoretic mappings which underlay the original work of Haldane. A number of interesting problems have been mapped into quantum spin chains of various types, including field theoretic phenomena and the localization problem of the quantum Hall effect.
Recently there has been extensive theoretical interest in the remarkable Haldane prediction that spin-1 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg-like chains should display an energy gap between singlet ground state and excited continua. This behavior has been confirmed numerically, and it has been shown that the energy gap is of a magnitude to be observable experimentally. The phenomenon has captured the interest of experimental groups in neutron scattering and magnetism. A recent experimental study obtains very good experimental agreement with the theoretical T=0 magnetization curve obtained numerically by Parkinson and Bonner.1,2 An explanation will be provided for the unusual phase diagram and other anomalous features observed by the authors of Ref. 2. Numerical susceptibility studies of Heisenberg antiferromagnetic and general XXZ spin-1 chains will be presented, and discussed in terms of a novel quantum-classical cross-over phenomenon.2 Finally, a comparison will be made of T=0 magnetization isotherms for several spin-1 chains, including the Takhtajan–Babujian chain and the chain with pure biquadratic interactions.
The spectral properties, and associated critical singularities, of spin-1 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chains are of high current interest, both theoretical and experimental. Theoretical studies using the single mode approximation and also a Monte Carlo calculation indicate that the spectrum has a gap at k=π, as predicted by Haldane. They also predict the unusual feature that the excited state continuum is asymmetric about the mid-point of the Brillouin zone, k=π/2. However, neither approach is sufficiently accurate to predict reliably the magnitude of the gap at k=0 which was not discussed by Haldane. Our approach is to use static (spectral) calculations of excited states of chains of N=4 through 14 spins for all values of k, a novel feature not associated with previous finite-size calculations, to discuss the dispersion spectra of the S=1 Heisenberg chain. In addition, we have calculated dynamical properties, in particular S(q,ω), exactly for finite chains up to N=14 spins. This allows us to estimate the gap at k=0 to good accuracy, and we find that to within this accuracy the gap at k=0 is twice the Haldane gap at k=π. This result is important in connection with very recent neutron scattering and magnetization measurements. In addition, we have calculated the correlation length and critical singularities associated with dynamical quantities.
The integrable S=1 isotropic quantum spin chain of N atoms, introduced by Takhtajan (1982) and Bubujian (1983), is studied as a function of magnetisation and hence of magnetic field. The methods used are (i) direct numerical diagonalisation for N<or=12, (ii) numerical solution of the Bethe ansatz equations for N=6, 12, 16, 20, 40, (iii) analytic solution of the Bethe ansatz equations for N to infinity . The authors obtain results for the multiple string structure using the first two of these methods, showing the dominance of two-strings in the ground state and elementary excitations. Based on this they calculate the magnetisation as a function of field in the thermodynamic limit, over the whole spin-flop regime. They observe a tracking soft mode in the finite N results and also an energy gap which tends to zero as N to infinity . Their conclusion is that the system behaves much more like the integrable S= 1 / 2 Heisenberg model than the nonintegrable S=1 Heisenberg model.
We present results of a numerical renormalization-group study of the isotropic S=1 Heisenberg chain. The density-matrix renormalization-group techniques used allow us to calculate a variety of properties of the chain with unprecedented accuracy. The ground-state energy per site of the infinite chain is found to be e0\ensuremath{\simeq}-1.401 484 038 971(4). Open-ended S=1 chains have effective S=1/2 spins on each end, with exponential decay of the local spin moment away from the ends, with decay length \ensuremath{\xi}\ensuremath{\simeq}6.03(1). The spin-spin correlation function also decays exponentially, and although the correlation length cannot be measured as accurately as the open-end decay length, it appears that the two lengths are identical. The string correlation function shows long-range order, with g(\ensuremath{\infty})\ensuremath{\simeq}-0.374 325 096(2). The excitation energy of the first excited state, a state with one magnon with momentum q=\ensuremath{\pi}, is the Haldane gap, which we find to be \ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\simeq}0.410 50(2). We find many low-lying excited states, including one- and two-magnon states, for several different chain lengths. The magnons have spin S=1, so the two-magnon states are singlets (S=0), triplets (S=1), and quintuplets (S=2). For magnons with momenta near \ensuremath{\pi}, the magnon-magnon interaction in the triplet channel is shown to be attractive, while in the singlet and quintuplet channels it is repulsive.