We have studied the Heisenberg model on the triangular lattice using quantum Monte Carlo techniques (up to 144 sites) and exact diagonalization (up to 36 sites). By studying the spin gap as a function of the system size we have obtained robust evidence for a gapless spectrum, confirming the existence of long-range N\'eel order. Our best estimate is that in the thermodynamic limit the order parameter ${m}^{\ifmmode\dagger\else\textdagger\fi{}}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}0.41\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.02$ is reduced by about
59 from its classical value and the ground state energy per site is ${e}_{0}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}\ensuremath{-}0.5458\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.0001$ in units of the exchange coupling. We have identified the ground state correlations that are important at short distances.
We study the one-dimensional Heisenberg spin-
1∕2 alternating bond chain in which the nearest neighbor exchange couplings are ferromagnetic (FM) and antiferromagnetic (AF) alternatively. By using exact diagonalization and the density matrix renormalization group method, we discuss how the system approaches the AF uniform spin-1 chain under certain conditions. When the ratio of AF to FM coupling strengths, $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ $(\ensuremath{\alpha}={J}_{AF}∕{J}_{F})$, is very small, physical properties of the alternating bond chain such as spin-spin correlation, the string correlation function, and the spin density coincide with those of the AF uniform spin-1 chain. The edge state problem is discussed in the present model with the small $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ limit. In addition, the Haldane gap of the AF uniform spin-1 chain is four times the gap of the system considered.
We study the properties of the ground state and the low-lying excited states of an alternating spin-1 and spin-
21 antiferromagnetic chain with ferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor coupling with a variety of methods, namely, spin-wave analysis, density-matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) method, and exact-diagonalization method. The ground state of this model with
2N spins is ferrimagnetic with the total spin
SG=N∕2 for all parameter values. In the long chain limit, a gapless excitation is found with characteristics of goldstone mode of the ferromagnetic order with total spin $S={S}_{G}\ensuremath{-}1$. The lowest gapped excitation, however, exists in the total spin
S=SG+1 sector. Interestingly, we find that with the increase in ferromagnetic coupling, spin-wave gapped excitation becomes lower than the massless mode for the large wave numbers. Correspondingly, from DMRG analysis we find that the excitation in the total spin
S=SG+1 is lower than that in the total spin $S={S}_{G}\ensuremath{-}1$ when the size of the chain is short and the ferromagnetic interaction is large. Characteristics of these excitations are also reflected in the low temperature thermodynamic quantities, where the low-energy properties are strongly affected by the system size and the coupling strength.
Haldane conjectures the fundamental difference in the energy spectrum of the Heisenberg antiferromagnetic (HAF) of the spin S chain is that the half-integer and the integer S chain have gapless and gapped energy spectrums, respectively. The ground state (gs) of the HAF spin-1/2 and spin-1 chains have a quasi-long-range and short-range correlation, respectively. We study the effect of the exchange interaction between an HAF spin-1/2 and an HAF spin-1 chain forming a normal ladder system and its gs properties. The inter-chain exchange interaction J⊥ can be either ferromagnetic (FM) or antiferromagnetic (AFM). Using the density matrix renormalization group method, we show that in the weak AFM/FM coupling limit of J⊥, the system behaves like two decoupled chains. However, in the large AFM J⊥ limit, the whole system can be visualized as weakly coupled spin-1/2 and spin-1 pairs which behave like an effective spin-1/2 HAF chain. In the large FM J⊥ limit, coupled spin-1/2 and spin-1 pairs can form pseudo spin-3/2 and the whole system behaves like an effective spin-3/2 HAF chain. We also derive the effective model Hamiltonian in both strong FM and AFM rung exchange coupling limits.
According to Haldane’s conjecture, there is a spin gap of the excitation spectrum in integer Heisenberg spin chains whereas half-integer spin chains have a gapless excitation spectrum. In an earlier publication (Hung and Gong 2005 Phys. Rev. B 71 054413), the Haldane gap and other properties of the spin-1 system are explained using a spin-1/2 alternating bond chain model. The ferromagnetic–ferromagnetic–antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain is expected to behave similarly to the uniform spin-3/2 Heisenberg chain for strong ferromagnetic coupling. And the general nonuniform spin-1/2 chain may be used to explain the properties of the integer and half-integer high spin- S chains, consistently. In this paper, we provide a detailed numerical verification for the above problems.