Weakly anisotropic frustrated zigzag spin chain

The frustrated spin-1/2 model with weakly anisotropic ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor and antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor exchanges is studied with use of variational mean-field approach, scaling estimates of the infrared divergencies in the perturbation theory and finite-size calculations. The ground state phase diagram of this model contains three phases: the ferromagnetic phase, the commensurate spin-liquid phase and the incommensurate phase. The non-trivial behavior of the boundaries between these phases and the character of the phase transitions in case of weak anisotropy are determined.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Geometric frustration and magnetization plateaus in quantum spin and Bose-Hubbard models on tubes

We study XXZ Heisenberg models on frustrated triangular lattices wrapped around a cylinder. In addition to having interesting magnetic phases, these models are equivalent to Bose-Hubbard models that describe the physical problem of adsorption of noble gases on the surface of carbon nanotubes. We find analytical results for the possible magnetization plateau values as a function of the wrapping vectors of the cylinder, which in general introduce extra geometric frustration besides the one due to the underlying triangular lattice. We show that for particular wrapping vectors $(N,0)$, which correspond to the zig-zag nanotubes, there is a macroscopically degenerate ground state in the classical Ising limit. The Hilbert space for the degenerate states can be enumerated by a mapping first into a path in a square lattice wrapped around a cylinder (a Bratteli diagram), and then to free fermions interacting with a single ${\bf Z}_N$ degree of freedom. From this model we obtain the spectrum in the anisotropic Heisenberg limit, showing that it is gapless. The continuum limit is a $c=1$ conformal field theory with compactification radius $R=N$ set by the physical tube radius. We show that the compactification radius quantization is exact in the projective $J_\perp/J_z \ll 1$ limit, and that higher order corrections reduce the value of $R$. The particular case of a $(N=2,0)$ tube, which corresponds to a 2-leg ladder with cross links, is studied separately and shown to be gapped because the fermion mapped problem contains superconducting pairing terms.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure

Hubbard ladders in a magnetic field

The behavior of a two leg Hubbard ladder in the presence of a magnetic field is studied by means of Abelian bosonization. We predict the appearance of a new (doping dependent) plateau in the magnetization curve of a doped 2-leg spin ladder in a wide range of couplings. We also discuss the extension to N-leg Hubbard ladders

Frustrated ferromagnetic spin-1/2 chain in the magnetic field

We study the ground state properties of the Heisenberg spin-1/2 chain with ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor and antiferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor interactions using two approximate methods. One of them is the Jordan-Wigner mean-field theory and another approach based on the transformation of spin operators to bose-ones and on the variational treatment of bosonic Hamiltonian. Both approaches give close results for the ground state energy and the T=0 magnetization curve. It is shown that quantum fluctuations change the classical critical exponents in the vicinity of the transition point from the ferromagnetic to the singlet ground state. The magnetization process displays the different behavior in the regions near and far from the transition point. The relation of the obtained results to experimental magnetization curve in $Rb_{2}Cu_{2}Mo_{3}O_{12}$ is discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Magnetization Process of the Classical Heisenberg Model on the Shastry-Sutherland Lattice

We investigate classical Heisenberg spins on the Shastry-Sutherland lattice and under an external magnetic field. A detailed study is carried out both analytically and numerically by means of classical Monte-Carlo simulations. Magnetization pseudo-plateaux are observed around 1/3 of the saturation magnetization for a range of values of the magnetic couplings. We show that the existence of the pseudo-plateau is due to an entropic selection of a particular collinear state. A phase diagram that shows the domains of existence of those pseudo-plateaux in the $(h, T)$ plane is obtained.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure

Hilbert Space of Isomorphic Representations of Bosonized Chiral QCD2QCD_2

We analyse the Hilbert space structure of the isomorphic gauge non-invariant and gauge invariant bosonized formulations of chiral $QCD_2$ for the particular case of the Jackiw-Rajaraman parameter $a = 2$. The BRST subsidiary conditions are found not to provide a sufficient criterium for defining physical states in the Hilbert space and additional superselection rules must to be taken into account. We examine the effect of the use of a redundant field algebra in deriving basic properties of the model. We also discuss the constraint structure of the gauge invariant formulation and show that the only primary constraints are of first class.Comment: LaTeX, 19 page

Massive and Massless Behavior in Dimerized Spin Ladders

We investigate the conditions under which a gap vanishes in the spectrum of dimerized coupled spin-1/2 chains by means of Abelian bosonization and Lanczos diagonalization techniques. Although both interchain ($J'$) and dimerization ($\delta$) couplings favor a gapful phase, it is shown that a suitable choice of these interactions yields massless spin excitations. We also discuss the influence of different arrays of relative dimerization on the appearance of non-trivial magnetization plateaus.Comment: 5 pages, RevTex, 5 Postscript figure

Magnetism of Finite Graphene Samples: Mean-Field Theory compared with Exact Diagonalization and Quantum Monte Carlo Simulation

The magnetic properties of graphene on finite geometries are studied using a self-consistent mean-field theory of the Hubbard model. This approach is known to predict ferromagnetic edge states close to the zig-zag edges in single-layer graphene quantum dots and nanoribbons. In order to assess the accuracy of this method, we perform complementary exact diagonalization and quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We observe good quantitative agreement for all quantities investigated provided that the Coulomb interaction is not too strong.Comment: 5 pages including 3 figures; v3: error concerning middle panel of Fig. 3 correcte

A Strong-Coupling Approach to the Magnetization Process of Polymerized Quantum Spin Chains

Polymerized quantum spin chains (i.e. spin chains with a periodic modulation of the coupling constants) exhibit plateaux in their magnetization curves when subjected to homogeneous external magnetic fields. We argue that the strong-coupling limit yields a simple but general explanation for the appearance of plateaux as well as of the associated quantization condition on the magnetization. We then proceed to explicitly compute series for the plateau boundaries of trimerized and quadrumerized spin-1/2 chains. The picture is completed by a discussion how the universality classes associated to the transitions at the boundaries of magnetization plateaux arise in many cases from a first order strong-coupling effective Hamiltonian.Comment: 5 pages REVTeX, three PostScript figures included using psfig.st

Interplay between Symmetric Exchange Anisotropy, Uniform Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya Interaction and Magnetic Fields in the Phase Diagram of Quantum Magnets and Superconductors

We theoretically study the joint influence of uniform Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interactions, symmetric exchange anisotropy (with its axis parallel to the DM vector) and arbitrarily oriented magnetic fields on one-dimensional spin 1/2 antiferromagnets. We show that the zero-temperature phase diagram contains three competing phases: (i) an antiferromagnet with Neel vector in the plane spanned by the DM vector and the magnetic field, (ii) a {\em dimerized} antiferromagnet with Neel vector perpendicular to both the DM vector and the magnetic field, and (iii) a gapless Luttinger liquid. Phase (i) is destroyed by a small magnetic field component along the DM vector and is furthermore unstable beyond a critical value of easy-plane anisotropy, which we estimate using Abelian and non-Abelian bosonization along with perturbative renormalization group. We propose a mathematical equivalent of the spin model in a one-dimensional Josephson junction (JJ) array located in proximity to a bulk superconductor. We discuss the analogues of the magnetic phases in the superconducting context and comment on their experimental viability.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.