We discuss the universal theory of localized impurities in the paramagnetic state of 2D antiferromagnets where the spin gap is assumed to be significantly smaller than a typical exchange energy. We study the impurity spin susceptibility near the host quantum transition from a gapped paramagnet to a Néel state, and we compute the impurity-induced damping of the spin-1 mode of the gapped antiferromagnet. Under suitable conditions our results apply also to d-wave superconductors. Doped antiferromagnets (AF) have been the subject of intense studies in the context of the cuprate high-temperature superconductors and other layered transition metal compounds. We present a quantum theory of a particular class of doped AF where it is possible to neglect the coupling between the spin and charge degrees of freedom and consider a theory of the spin excitations alone. Such a theory will apply to (i) quasi-2D ‘spin gap ’ insulators like SrCu2O3 or NaV2O5 in
We discuss the effects of nonmagnetic impurities (static holes) in the
S=1/2 Heisenberg model on a two-dimensional (2D) square lattice, and on two- and three-leg ladders. Results of quantum Monte Carlo simulations show that a free localized moment is induced around an isolated impurity only in the spin-gapped two-leg ladder, in agreement with previous theoretical expectations. The localization length of the
S=1/2 impurity moment in a two-leg ladder with isotropic couplings is $\ensuremath{\approx}1.5$ lattice spacings. In gapless ladders (odd number of legs) and in the 2D lattice, no free moments are induced. However, in the 2D system, which has antiferromagnetic long-range order at
T=0 and a gap for longitudinal fluctuations, the impurity leads to a localized distortion of the magnetization in the direction of the broken symmetry, with total
Sz=1/2. The shape of the distortion is in close agreement with previous spin-wave calculations. For all the systems, a staggered moment is induced by the impurity. For the gapped two-leg ladder this is exponentially localized within a length equal to the spin correlation length of the ladder ($\ensuremath{\approx}3.2$ lattice spacings). For the three-leg ladder, the integrated staggered moment diverges as the system size goes to infinity, but the staggered magnetization at a given site appears to vanish. In 2D, we discuss the behavior seen in finite systems both with and without additional symmetry-breaking mechanisms. We also discuss the effect of impurities on the NMR Knight shift and the bulk magnetic susceptibility.
We investigate magnetic properties induced by a spinless impurity in strongly correlated electron systems, i.e. the Hubbard model in the spatial dimension
D=1,2, and 3. For the 1D system exploiting the Bethe ansatz exact solution we find that the spin susceptibility and the local density of states in the vicinity of a spinless impurity show divergent behaviors. The results imply that the induced local moment is not completely quenched at any finite temperatures. On the other hand, the spin lattice relaxation rate obtained by bosonization and boundary conformal field theory satisfies a relation analogous to the Korringa law,
1/T1T∼χ2. In the 2D and 3D systems, the analysis based upon the antiferromagnetically correlated Fermi liquid theory reveals that the antiferromagnetic spin fluctuation developed in the bulk is much suppressed in the vicinity of a spinless impurity, and thus magnetic properties are governed by the induced local moment, which leads to the Korringa law of
1/T1.