We investigate frustration-induced instabilities in a trimerized quantum spin chain motivated by recent experimental findings for the compound Na
2Cu
3Ge
4O
12. Employing a cluster mean-field approach combined with Lanczos exact diagonalization, we analyze the ground-state and quantum-information properties of a Heisenberg model with competing interactions in a magnetic field. In the weakly frustrated regime, the system exhibits a robust
1/3 magnetization plateau associated with a collective ferrimagnetic-like trimer state. Increasing the next-nearest-neighbor intratrimer coupling drives a pronounced reorganization of spin correlations, leading to a crossover toward a doublon-like correlation regime and providing a static ground-state picture consistent with the composite excitations observed dynamically in trimerized chains. The resulting low-energy behavior can be interpreted in terms of weakly interacting emergent spins, offering a microscopic explanation for the extended stability of the magnetization plateau. Furthermore, through finite-size scaling analyses of the energy gap, von Neumann entanglement entropy, and fidelity susceptibility, we characterize the zero-field criticality of the model. Ultimately, our results suggest that frustration gives rise to qualitatively distinct quantum states and provide a microscopic framework for understanding the emergence of fractionalized excitations in trimerized quantum spin systems.
Quantum spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg trimerized chain with strong intradimer and weak monomer-dimer coupling constants is studied using the many-body perturbation expansion developed about the exact solution of the spin-1/2 Ising-Heisenberg diamond chain. The Heisenberg trimerized chain shows the intermediate one-third plateau, which was also observed in the magnetization curve of the polymeric compound Cu
3(P
2O
6OH)
2 affording its experimental realization. Within the strong-coupling method we have obtained the effective Hamiltonians for the magnetic-field range from zero to one-third plateau, and from one-third plateau to the saturation magnetization. The second-order perturbation theory shows reliable results even for the moderate ratio between weaker dimer-monomer and stronger intradimer coupling constants. We have also examined thermodynamic properties and recovered the low-temperature peak in the specific heat. The accuracy of the developed method is tested through a comparison with numerical density-matrix renormalization group and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Using the results for the effective Hamiltonian we suggest straightforward procedure for finding the microscopic parameters of one-dimensional trimerized magnetic compounds with strong intradimer and weak monomer-dimer couplings. We found the refined values for the coupling constants of Cu
3(P
2O
6OH)
2 by matching the theoretical results with the available experimental data for the magnetization and magnetic susceptibility in a wide range of temperatures and magnetic fields.
Topologically nontrivial Haldane phase is theoretically proposed to be realized in the 1/3-magnetization (
M) plateau of spin-1/2 trimer systems. However, the spin excitation gap, typical characteristic of Haldane phase, is not yet experimentally verified. Here, we report the nuclear magnetic resonance investigations into the low-energy spin dynamics in the
S=1/2 spin-trimer antiferromagnetic chain compound Na
2Cu
3Ge
4−xSi
xO
12 (
x=0,0.1∼1.5). In the parent compound (
x=0), the spin-lattice relaxation rate (1/
T1) shows significantly different temperature dependence when the external magnetic field is increased above the critical field of
μ0Hc = 29 T. The spin excitation gap is evidenced from the thermally activated behavior of
1/T1(T) in the 1/3-
M plateau state. By substituting Ge
4+ with Si
4+, the critical field for the 1/3-
M plateau significantly decreases, e.g.
μ0Hc=17 T in
x=1.0 samples, which results from the suppressed inter-trimer coupling
J2. The gapped spin excitation is confirmed again above 17 T, whose size shows temperature-dependent behavior for
μ0H≥25.72 T. These observations provide further insights into the Haldane physics.
A quantum spin-
21 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg trimerized chain with strong intradimer and weak monomer-dimer coupling constants is studied using the many-body perturbation expansion, which is developed from the exactly solved spin-
21 Ising-Heisenberg diamond chain preserving correlations between all interacting spins of the trimerized chain. It is evidenced that this perturbation approach is superior with respect to the standard perturbation scheme developed from a set of noninteracting spin monomers and dimers, and its accuracy even coincides, up to a moderate ratio of the coupling constants, with state-of-the-art numerical techniques. The Heisenberg trimerized chain shows the intermediate one-third plateau, which was also observed in the magnetization curve of the polymeric compound
Cu3(P2O6OH)2 affording its experimental realization. Within the modified strong-coupling method we have obtained the effective Hamiltonians for the magnetic field range from zero to the one-third plateau, and from the one-third plateau to the saturation magnetization. The unconventional second-order perturbation theory provides extremely accurate results for both critical fields of the intermediate one-third plateau up to a moderate ratio of the coupling constants as convincingly evidenced through a comparison with numerical density-matrix renormalization group data. It is shown that the derived effective Hamiltonian also provides at low enough temperatures sufficiently accurate results for magnetization curves and thermodynamic properties as corroborated through a comparison with quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Using the results for the effective Hamiltonian, we additionally suggest a straightforward procedure for finding the microscopic parameters of one-dimensional trimerized magnetic compounds with strong intradimer and weak monomer-dimer couplings. We found the refined values for the coupling constants of
Cu3(P2O6OH)2 by matching the theoretical results with the available experimental data for the magnetization and magnetic susceptibility in a wide range of temperatures and magnetic fields.
We study Heisenberg spin-1/2 and spin-1 chains with alternating ferromagnetic (
J1F) and antiferromagnetic (
J1A) nearest-neighbor interactions and ferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor interaction (
J2F). In this model frustration is induced by the non-zero
J2F and the effect of dimerization is realized by changing the strength of
J1A for a fixed value of
J1F. The model with site spin
s behaves like a Haldane spin chain with site spin 2
s in the limit of vanishing
J2F and large
J1F/J1A. We show that the exact ground state of the model can be found along a line in the parameter space. The phase diagram in the space of
J1A−J2F is determined using numerical techniques complemented by some analytical calculations. A number of quantities, including the ground state spin, energy gap, structure factor, entanglement entropy, and zero temperature magnetization, are studied to understand the complete phase diagram. An interesting and application-wise important feature of this model is that it exhibits a macroscopic magnetization jump in the presence of a magnetic field; we study this using an effective Hamiltonian.
The density matrix renormalization group and quantum Monte Carlo methods are used to describe coupled trimer chains in a magnetic field
h. The Hamiltonian contains exchange terms involving the intratrimer coupling
J1 (taken as the unit of energy) and the intertrimer coupling
J2, plus the Zeeman interaction for a magnetic field
h along the
z direction. Results for the magnetization per trimer
m are calculated in regimes of positive and negative values of the ratio
J=J2/J1, from which the rich field-induced ground state phase diagram
h versus
J is derived, with the presence of a Luttinger liquid, the 1/3 plateau (
m=1/2), and the one of fully polarized magnetization (
m=3/2). Also, zero-field Lanczos calculation of the spin-wave dispersion from the 1/3 plateau for
Sz=1 is shown at the previous regimes of
J values. In addition, we also report on the decay of correlation functions of trimers along open chains, as well as the average two-magnon distribution. The ground state is ferrimagnetic for $0<J\ensuremath{\le}1$, and is a singlet for $\ensuremath{-}1\ensuremath{\le}J<0$. In the singlet phase, the spin correlation functions along the legs present an antiferromagnetic power-law decay, similar to the spin-1/2 linear chain, thus suggesting that the ground state is made of three coupled antiferromagnetically oriented chains. In the singlet phase, the dimensionless thermal magnetic susceptibility per site normalized by
1/∣J∣ gets closer to $1/{\ensuremath{\pi}}^{2}$ as the temperature $T\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0$. For the ferrimagnetic phase, we fit the susceptibility to the experimental data for the compound
Pb3Cu3(PO4)4 and estimate the model exchange couplings:
J1=74.8K and
J=0.4. These values imply a range of energies for the magnon excitations that are in accord with the data from neutron scattering experiments on
Pb3Cu3(PO4)4 for two excitation modes. The 1/3 plateau closes only at
1/∣J∣=0 with
J<0.