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arXiv:cond-mat/9711061 · Journal of the Physical Society of Japan

Mixed-Spin Ladders and Plaquette Spin Chains

Akihisa Koga, Seiya Kumada, Norio Kawakami, Takahiro Fukui

Published Feb 15, 1998• 28 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We investigate low-energy properties of a generalized spin ladder model with both of the spin alternation and the bond alternation, which allows us to systematically study not only ladder systems but also alternating spin chains. By exploiting non-linear $σ$ model techniques we study the model with particular emphasis on the competition between gapful and gapless states. Our approach turns out to provide a more consistent semi-classical description of alternating spin chains than that in the previous work. We also study a closely related model, i.e., a spin chain with plaquette structure, and show that frustration causes little effect on its low-energy properties so far as the strength of frustration is weaker than a certain critical value.

DOI
10.1143/jpsj.67.622

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We investigate low-energy properties of a generalized spin ladder model with both of the spin alternation and the bond alternation, which allows us to systematically study not only ladder systems but also alternating spin chains. By exploiting non-linear σσσ model techniques we study the model with particular emphasis on the competition between gapful and gapless states. Our approach turns out to provide a more consistent semi-classical description of alternating spin chains than that in the previous work. We also study a closely related model, i.e., a spin chain with plaquette structure, and show that frustration causes little effect on its low-energy properties so far as the strength of frustration is weaker than a certain critical value.
The effect of antiferromagnetic interchain coupling in alternating spin-(1,1/2) chains is studied by means of spin-wave theory and density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG). In particular, two limiting cases are investigated, the two-leg ladder and its two-dimensional (2D) generalization. Results of the ground-state properties like energy, spin gap, magnetizations, and correlation functions are reported for the whole range of the interchain coupling ${J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}.$ For the 2D case the spin-wave results predict a smooth dimensional crossover from 1D to 2D keeping the ground state always ordered. For the ladder system, the DMRG results show that any ${J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}>0$ drives the system to a gapped ground state. Furthermore the behavior of the correlation functions closely resemble the uniform spin-1/2 ladder. For ${J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}$ lower than 0.3, however, the gap behaves quadratically as $\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\sim}{0.6J}_{\ensuremath{\perp}}^{2}.$ Finally, it is argued that the behavior of the spin gap for an arbitrary number of mixed coupled spin chains is analogous to that of the uniform spin-1/2 chains.
We apply the Lanczos method to a two-leg ladder with mixed spins of magnitudes (S1,S2)=(1,1/2){(S}_{1}{,S}_{2})=(1,1/2)(S1​,S2​)=(1,1/2) located at alternating positions along the ladder. The effect of dimerization $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ is also considered according to two different patterns. A spin-wave theory (SWT) is applied to this model predicting one gapless branch with ferromagnetic properties and another gapful branch with antiferromagnetic nature as low-energy excitations of the model. We compute the ground-state energies, ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic excitation gaps, magnetizations, and correlation functions as a function of ${J}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ and $\ensuremath{\gamma}$ which results into a fine estimate of the phase diagram. The Lanczos results are compared with the SWT analysis and a qualitative agreement is found but with numerical discrepancies. We also study numerically the spin-Peierls instability and find that it is conditional for any value of ${J}^{\ensuremath{'}}\ensuremath{\in}(0,2)$ and both dimerization patterns.
We examine the ground state and the excitations of an one-dimensional Heisenberg spin 1/2 antiferromagnet with alternating dimers and four-spin plaquettes (dimer-plaquette chain). The properties of the system depend on the competing dimer and plaquette bonds. Several exact, exact-numerical and perturbational results are presented. We find that the system is gapped for all parameter values. For the latter one we find an effective S=1 Haldane like behaviour in the limit of dominating dimer bonds. The model considered is related to the recently found 1/5-depleted square-lattice Heisenberg system CaV4O9CaV_4O_9CaV4​O9​.
A one-dimensional spin-1∕2 model in which the alternation of the exchange interactions between neighboring spins is accompanied by the next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) spin exchange (zig-zag spin ladder with alternation) is studied. The thermodynamic characteristics of the model quantum spin chain are obtained in the mean-field-like approximation. Depending on the strength of the NNN interactions, the model manifests either the spin-gapped behavior of low-lying excitations at low magnetic fields, or ferrimagnetic ordering in the ground state with gapless low-lying excitations. The system undergoes second-order or first-order quantum phase transitions, governed by the external magnetic field, NNN coupling strength, and the degree of the alternation. Hence, NNN spin–spin interactions in a dimerized quantum spin chain can produce a spontaneous magnetization. On the other hand, for quantum spin chains with a spontaneous magnetization, caused by NNN spin–spin couplings, the alternation of nearest-neighbor (NN) exchange interactions can cause destruction of that magnetization and the onset of a spin gap for low-lying excitations. Alternating NN interactions produce a spin gap between two branches of low-energy excitations, and the NNN interactions yield asymmetry of the dispersion laws of those excitations, with possible minima corresponding to incommensurate structures in the spin chain.
We study the impact of the diagonal frustrating couplings on the quantum phase diagram of a two-leg ladder composed of alternating spin-1 and spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ rungs. As the coupling strength is increased the system successively exhibits two gapped paramagnetic phases (a rung-singlet and a Haldane-type nondegenerate states) and two ferrimagnetic phases with different ferromagnetic moments per rung. The first two states are similar to the phases studied in the frustrated spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ ladder, whereas the magnetic phases appear as a result of the mixed-spin structure of the model. A detailed characterization of these phases is presented using density-matrix renormalization-group calculations, exact diagonalizations of periodic clusters, and an effective Hamiltonian approach inspired by the analysis of numerical data. The present theoretical study was motivated by the recent synthesis of the quasi-one-dimensional ferrimagnetic material FeIIFeIII{\text{Fe}}^{\text{II}}{\text{Fe}}^{\text{III}}FeIIFeIII (trans-1,4-cyclohexanedicarboxylate) exhibiting a similar ladder structure.
The magnetic phase diagram of a plaquette dimerized and frustrated antiferromagnetic ladder system is studied by using a combination of numerical and analytical techniques. For the strongly frustrated regime, series expansions and bond operator techniques are employed to analyze zero magnetic field, whereas low-energy effective models are used to study the complete magnetization process. The interplay between frustration and dimerization gives rise to a rich plateau structure that is captured by effective models and corroborated by numerical density matrix renormalization group simulations, in particular, the emergence of intermediate plateaus at M=14M=\frac{1}{4}M=41​ and 34\frac{3}{4}43​ of saturation in the magnetization curve is clarified.