No Arabic abstract
We employ matrix-product state techniques to numerically study the zero-temperature spin transport in a finite spin-1/2 XXZ chain coupled to fermionic leads with a spin bias voltage. Current-voltage characteristics are calculated for parameters corresponding to the gapless XY phase and the gapped Neel phase. In both cases, the low-bias spin current is strongly suppressed unless the parameters of the model are fine-tuned. For the XY phase, this corresponds to a conducting fixed point where the conductance agrees with the Luttinger-liquid prediction. In the Neel phase, fine-tuning the parameters similarly leads to an unsuppressed spin current with a linear current-voltage characteristic at low bias voltages. However, with increasing the bias voltage, there occurs a sharp crossover to a region where a current-voltage characteristic is no longer linear and the smaller differential conductance is observed. We furthermore show that the parameters maximizing the spin current minimize the Friedel oscillations at the interface, in agreement with the previous analyses of the charge current for inhomogeneous Hubbard and spinless fermion chains.
We present a temperature and magnetic field dependence study of spin transport and magnetothermal corrections to the thermal conductivity in the spin S = 1/2 integrable easy-plane regime Heisenberg chain, extending an earlier analysis based on the Bethe ansatz method. We critically discuss the low temperature, weak magnetic field behavior, the effect of magnetothermal corrections in the vicinity of the critical field and their role in recent thermal conductivity experiments in 1D quantum magnets.
Under a perfect periodic potential, the electric current density induced by a constant electric field may exhibit nontrivial oscillations, so-called Bloch oscillations, with an amplitude that remains nonzero in the large system size limit. Such oscillations have been well studied for nearly noninteracting particles and observed in experiments. In this work, we revisit Bloch oscillations in strongly interacting systems. By analyzing the spin-1/2 XXZ chain, which can be mapped to a model of spinless electrons, we demonstrate that the current density at special values of the anisotropy parameter $Delta=-cos(pi/p)$ ($p=3,4,5,cdots$) in the ferromagnetic gapless regime behaves qualitatively the same as in the noninteracting case ($Delta=0$) even in the weak electric field limit. When $Delta$ deviates from these values, the amplitude of the oscillation under a weak electric field is suppressed by a factor of the system size. We estimate the strength of the electric field required to observe such a behavior using the Landau--Zener formula.
Comparing high-resolution specific heat and thermal expansion measurements to exact finite-size diagonalization, we demonstrate that Cs$_2$CoCl$_4$ for a magnetic field along the crystallographic b axis realizes the spin-$frac{1}{2}$ XXZ chain in a transverse field. Exploiting both thermal as well as virtual excitations of higher crystal field states, we find that the spin chain is in the XY-limit with an anisotropy $J_z/J_perp approx 0.12$ substantially smaller than previously believed. A spin-flop Ising quantum phase transition occurs at a critical field of $mu_0 H_b^{rm cr} approx 2$ T before around 3.5 T the description in terms of an effective spin-$frac{1}{2}$ chain becomes inapplicable.
A high order series expansion is employed to study the thermodynamical properties of a S=1/2 chain coupled to dispersionless phonons. The results are obtained without truncating the phonon subspace since the series expansion is performed formally in the overall exchange coupling J. The results are used to investigate various parameter regimes, e.g. the adiabatic and antiadiabatic limit as well as the intermediate regime which is difficult to investigate by other methods. We find that dynamic phonon effects become manifest when more than one thermodynamic quantity is analyzed.
Motifs of periodic modulations are encountered in a variety of natural systems, where at least two rival states are present. In strongly correlated electron systems such behaviour has typically been associated with competition between short- and long-range interactions, e.g., between exchange and dipole-dipole interactions in the case of ferromagnetic thin films. Here we show that spin-stripe textures may develop also in antiferromagnets, where long-range dipole-dipole magnetic interactions are absent. A comprehensive analysis of magnetic susceptibility, high-field magnetization, specific heat, and neutron diffraction measurements unveils $beta$-TeVO$_4$ as a nearly perfect realization of a frustrated (zigzag) ferromagnetic spin-1/2 chain. Strikingly, a narrow spin stripe phase develops at elevated magnetic fields due to weak frustrated short-range interchain exchange interactions possibly assisted by the symmetry allowed electric polarization. This concept provides an alternative route for the stripe formation in strongly correlated electron systems and may help understanding other widespread, yet still elusive, stripe-related phenomena.